Student Spotlight: Alice Park ’25

Alice Park ’25 was drawn to the law based on her experiences as a student journalist and history major at Yale University. Now a Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court Competition finalist, Park opens up about her work with The New York Times, her interest in criminal law, and one of her favorite classes. 

Hometown: Gaithersburg, Maryland

Before Columbia Law: B.A. in history and statistics and data science, Yale University

At Columbia Law: Articles editor, Columbia Law Review; president, Empowering Women of Color; Appellate Litigation Clinic; extern, Federal Defenders of New York and the Legal Defense Fund (formerly known as the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund); team coordinator, Parole Advocacy Project; research assistant to Kellen R. Funk, Michael E. Patterson Professor of Law, and Kerrel Murray, associate professor of law and Milton Handler Fellow; teaching assistant to Murray, Gillian Metzger ’96, Harlan Fiske Stone Professor of Constitutional Law, and Thomas P. Schmidt, associate professor of law

What’s Next: Park has clerkships with Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Judge Lara E. Montecalvo of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit.

You were a New York Times election analytics worker in 2020 and 2022. What was most interesting about that experience?

I worked on the Times’ engineering team to collect precinct-level election results. This data fed into the “needle,” a statistical model that predicts the outcome on election night. When it came to the 2020 election, there were a lot of unforeseen challenges because of changes in election administration during the [COVID-19] pandemic, most notably the rise of absentee and early voting. We had to figure out how to scrape data from different states for different kinds of voting. It was really exciting to work on election night, making live fixes to our code to ensure data was coming in smoothly.

What made you want to go to law school?

I didn’t grow up knowing any lawyers and never imagined myself going to law school, but in college, I took classes on Asian American history and learned about the history of exclusion of Asian Americans through immigration restrictions, land laws, and other legal barriers to full citizenship. I became interested in how law structures society and the role lawyers have played in social movements. Also, as a reporter for my school newspaper, I wrote a lot of stories about Title IX and sexual misconduct, and that got me interested in questions of accountability. I met law students and practitioners who exposed me to the different ways lawyers can push for social change and make a real difference in people’s lives, which ultimately inspired me to go to law school.

What Law School classes, professors, or other experiences have stood out?

I would say my Federal Courts class with Professor Kellen Funk. Federal Courts is known as one of the hardest classes in law school, and I was very intimidated going in. But the way he taught the class was incredible. Professor Funk made complex doctrines accessible and grounded the cases in their historical contexts, highlighting the stakes of the issues we were discussing. He really made us care about the material while also challenging us to think critically about the role of federal courts.

Also, in the Parole Advocacy Project and the Federal Defenders externship, I worked on cases getting people who are currently incarcerated out on parole and getting people facing prison time either time served or shorter sentences. Those have been extremely rewarding experiences. 

What made you want to sign up for the Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court Competition?

I was on the Frederick Douglass Moot Court team as a 1L and loved that experience. It really pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me gain more confidence in public speaking, which I’ve always found very nerve-racking. I signed up for [the Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court] because I thought it’d be fun to give moot court another shot!

What has been your favorite part of the competition?

I’ve had two amazing partners in the competition, and mooting with them and other friends has been a highlight of the experience. I’ve also enjoyed listening to the other competitors during oral arguments. I’ve appreciated this opportunity to see my classmates in action as advocates since we don’t often get to see that side of our peers. Everyone has been incredibly talented, and it’s been fun to see how people approach the same problem from different angles and with their own styles of oral advocacy.

Your note, “Digital Dog Sniffers,” on a proposed law that would require tech companies to report knowledge of certain drug-related offenses, was published in the Columbia Law Review. How did you come up with that idea?

When I interned at a tech company in college, I learned that social media platforms sometimes collaborate with law enforcement when they discover illegal content on their sites. I was struck by the world of content moderation and surveillance of user data happening behind the scenes. When I was brainstorming note topics, my adviser, Professor Dan Richman, told me about this proposed law. The bill raises a lot of interesting questions about users’ Fourth Amendment rights and whether social media companies can be considered state actors, rather than purely private entities, under certain circumstances.