David F. Scollan, who hails from Mahopac Falls, New York, took full advantage of the many hands-on opportunities at Miami Law. A Miami Public Interest Scholar, Scollan was also the managing editor of the University of Miami Inter-American Law Review and Symposium Chair for the Inter-American's Symposium "Haiti: Reparations & Restitution" held this past March.
His law review article on state violence in Chile and Colombia will be published in the upcoming issue of the Inter-American Law Review. Additionally, Scollan was a member of the International Moot Court Program and helped clinch the title of Best Regional Team for the Americas in the International Bar Association's International Criminal Court Moot Court Competition. In that competition, he was awarded worldwide Best Oralist and Best Defense Counsel out of hundreds of law students who competed.
Scollan has been on the dean's list for three semesters and earned the CALI Award in the criminal civil rights investigations and prosecutions course taught by Professor Christopher Lomax. He interned in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of the Virgin Islands in St. Thomas during the summer of 2021. This year he clerked at Podhurst Orseck, P.A. Last summer, he worked as a legal intern with the U.S. Department of Justice Senior Advisor on Gender and Equality with Professor Caroline Bettinger-López.
"Working for Professor Bettinger-López was a world-class education in the federal policymaking process and intra/inter-agency collaboration," said Scollan.
Before Miami Law, Scollan earned a Master of Science in international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a B.A., magna cum laude, in African studies and political science from the University of Pennsylvania.
He became interested in African studies when he spent the summer of his junior year of high school on an exchange program in Botswana. He learned Swahili to "round out my interests by gaining expertise on Sub-Saharan African, particularly East Africa. I think it's hard to take someone seriously who studies an area of the world but who doesn't speak the language."
After graduate school, where the focus was on academic theory with little practical experience, Scollan decided on law school — "to be someone who contributed to positive change.
Lawyers are a group of people who do — in courts and in policymaking across the country and around the world."
He chose to attend Miami Law because of the Miami Scholars Public Interest program.
"When I visited in February of 2020, the first day I met Dean Marni Lennon, she asked me what my dream job was. I demurred and said something about public interest in general. She pushed me for a real answer, and I finally said, 'I want to work in The Hague and prosecute war criminals.' And, without batting an eye, Dean Lennon said 'Great. Then that's exactly what we'll work toward.' It was refreshing for an administrator to not only not question my interest in public interest law, but to also encourage me to double down on it."
Scollan has tentatively accepted an offer from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Attorney General's Honors Program as a trial attorney in the Tax Division's Criminal Enforcement Section, which prosecutes federal criminal tax cases.
"The Honors Program has been my goal since I spent my 1L summer as a law clerk in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of the Virgin Islands in St. Thomas," said Scollan. "So, for now, my first three-and-a-half years will be with the tax division. After that, time will tell! DOJ offers attorneys a wide range of opportunities to work in different areas of law: civil rights, international affairs, other white-collar crimes are a few that pique my interest. Long term, I would like to serve as an U.S. Attorney or make it to The Hague as a war crimes prosecutor."
Read more about experiential learning at Miami Law.
