Monica Dey ‘26 featured in Harvard Law Today
“There’s something so powerful about learning someone’s story and then doing your best to honor that story in a way that makes sense within the structure of the law.”
As an intern with the United Kingdom’s Public Defender Service (PDS) during the winter term, Monica Dey ’26 spent a week in a criminal Crown Court taking notes on witness testimony and brainstorming trial strategy with the solicitor-advocate defending a person accused of rape.
For the future public defender — Dey will start a position at the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services in the fall — the experience was an opportunity to learn more about the criminal legal system in another country.
Dey had approached the agency about an internship without an introduction or a reference.
“I sent a cold email,” she said, and then “the stars really aligned.”
Charlotte Robinson ’18, the head of solicitors for PDS, wrote back to Dey and eventually supervised her work over three weeks in London and Cheltenham.
Dey hoped to build on her experience with litigation in general and public defense in particular. At Harvard Law, she has worked at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau representing low-earning workers in wage theft, minimum wage, and overtime cases. She also is a student attorney in the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project and last summer was a law clerk at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia.
“The J-term is such a unique time to be able to explore something I wouldn’t necessarily have the time or opportunity to do once I start working,” Dey said. “I wanted to better understand a legal system that is relatively similar to ours.”
Dey, who worked in international development in Africa for eight years before starting law school, was drawn to criminal defense work because of its focus on individual people and their stories.
“All these different strands of things I’ve enjoyed doing — advocating for marginalized people, public speaking, storytelling — come to a head in public defense,” she said. “There’s something so powerful about learning someone’s story and then doing your best to honor that story in a way that makes sense within the structure of the law.”
One of the most interesting parts of her fellowship, Dey said, was seeing how the U.K.’s criminal legal system is different from and similar to that of the United States. One major difference is that U.K. jurors can draw adverse inferences from defendants’ silence in some cases, which is a significant difference from the U.S, where defendants are protected by the Fifth Amendment.”
In addition to working on the rape trial, Dey was able to hear directly from PDS clients about their experiences in the criminal legal system in the United Kingdom. She also put together detailed guides for the four PDS offices that include resources for clients facing issues with housing, food insecurity, or addiction.
“Being a student in the United States, I’m exposed primarily to U.S. legal culture,” Dey said. “Realizing that there are legal systems that don’t approach problems in the same way did make me think more deeply about our system and what works well and what doesn’t.”