This week’s interview is with Ángel García, one of our summer interns in the Global Legal Research Center.
Describe your background.
I was born in Ponferrada but I was raised in Valladolid, a city in the north central part of Spain. I am a law graduate of Alfonso X El Sabio, Madrid, and after the completion of my law degree I came to Washington, DC in order to study a Master of Laws (LL.M) in International Legal Studies at the American University Washington College of Law.
What is your academic/professional history?
I have some experience as a judicial clerk and I have worked as an intern for two law firms in Madrid. My LL.M specialization is business law but I am very interested in philosophy of law and comparative law. This is the kind of opportunity and background that an LL.M gives you, where you can meet students from very different legal cultures and summarize every different perspective.
I am very happy to be part of the LL.M alumni basically because it gives me a good knowledge of what is happening in the world. I could not even imagine everything I was going to learn in Washington, DC right after completing my law degree in Spain.
How would you describe your job to other people?
Right now I am involved in a project that aims is to translate Colombian laws summaries from Spanish to English in order to upload them to the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN) database. This database is a very useful tool for obtaining laws from all over the world and also for researching and finding out what legislators are doing around the world. But this is not all. I am helping Dante Figueroa, Senior Legal Information Analyst, in other very interesting academic projects.
Why did you want to work at the Law Library of Congress?
This is a unique place in the world. It is amazing to think of a staff like this working for a government in order to provide research and help members of Congress. I thought I was going to learn a lot of things, but… not this much! Being in the middle of an office where everybody is covering different legal systems from all the countries in the world is priceless. And, as I say, I could not imagine a few months ago how instructive this could have been and how professional the staff is here (no, I am not getting paid for saying this :))
What is the most interesting fact you’ve learned about the Law Library of Congress?
I have learned how people work and manage tasks in order to assist the Congress in its functions and beyond. If I were a legislator in Spain, I would love to have something similar to this. The emphasis that the U.S. government puts on the information and the culture available to their representatives is awesome. This is one of the biggest libraries in the world and its primary aim is to serve the legislative branch. I wish other countries could learn from this idea.
What’s something most of your co-workers do not know about you?
I think this is the most difficult question… I am one of the few Spaniards who does not like soccer, but I really miss a good bullfight. There. I said it.