CLEA Outstanding Student Award: Brooklyn's Matthew Boyd

CLEA Outstanding Externship Student Award: Matthew Boyd

This year’s recipient of Brooklyn Law School’s Outstanding Externship Student Award is Matthew Boyd ‘22. While at BLS, Matt completed three semesters of externship work on behalf of three different public interest field placements—the HIV Law Project, the Legal Aid Society Homeless Rights Project, and the National Center for Law & Economic Justice. These all were demanding, intense, high-volume environments where Matt made meaningful contributions to the mission. Matt's labors covered the landscape of social justice advocacy, including direct client services, impact litigation, policy analysis, and field research. His field supervisors describe him as industrious, high-performing, insightful, and able contextualize his work within broader societal and legal system concerns. They uniformly remarked on Matt’s maturity and effectiveness, especially when interacting with distressed clients and in other challenging circumstances. He also excelled in the externship program’s corequisite seminars and faculty tutorials. As an emissary to the legal profession, he represented the best of Brooklyn Law School, and we are proud to honor him with this award.