How UF Law is sending me to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and why I’m ready
Christian Jubran
I grew up in Jacksonville, knowing I wanted to work at the intersection of law and government. What I didn’t know was how seamlessly one institution would connect those two worlds for me.
As a double Gator, UF undergrad and now a 2L at the Levin College of Law, I’ve had the rare experience of watching my education and my career begin to converge in real time. This fall, through UF Law’s Semester in Practice Program, I’ll be clerking with the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C. It’s the kind of opportunity that feels like the sum of everything UF has built in me, and I don’t take that lightly.
The path here wasn’t a straight line. It was built, one experience at a time.
My involvement with Student Government began in undergrad, where I served as an off-campus senator. That experience introduced me to how institutional systems actually function, how rules get interpreted, competing interests get managed and credibility gets earned or lost. Florida Blue Key deepened that foundation, connecting me to alumni and leaders across law, business and government, and showing me early on how relationships and institutional knowledge shape the doors that open later.
The summer before law school, I interned with Congressman John Rutherford in Washington, D.C. It was my first real look at the legislative process, facilitating constituent services, supporting staff operations and seeing how a congressional office moves. I left wanting to understand more of the legal machinery behind it.
Law school gave me that. At Levin, the culture insists you understand not just what the law is, but what it does. My 1L summer with Judge Mark Klingensmith of Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal put that into practice. Researching complex appellate records, and drafting bench memoranda and proposed opinions, I began to see how legal reasoning at the appellate level ripples outward, shaping the precedent that trial courts apply and the gaps that legislatures eventually have to address.
This past fall, externing for Judge John Badalamenti in the Middle District of Florida sharpened that further. Drafting internal memoranda, reviewing motions and pleadings, and supporting active case management, I developed a much clearer sense of how federal courts interpret and apply the law after the fact. Now I want to see the front end of that process. What does legal reasoning look like before it reaches the courts? How does it shape legislation while there’s still room to get it right?
That’s what draws me to the House Judiciary Committee. The work of its subcommittees covers constitutional interpretation, the scope of administrative agency authority, antitrust enforcement and government oversight. These aren’t abstract questions; they determine how federal power is exercised and constrained, and how individuals actually experience the institutions that govern them. I want to contribute to that work through legal research, drafting memoranda for staff, and helping prepare materials that inform how members approach hearings and policy decisions.
What makes the Semester in Practice program so valuable is that UF doesn’t just give students access to these placements; it integrates them. I’ll earn academic credit, maintain ties to the law school and be fully immersed in the legislative process during the academic year rather than squeezed into a summer. That continuity matters. It means I’m not parachuting in; I’m arriving as someone whose training was designed to lead here.
None of this happened in spite of being a student. It happened because of how UF Law is built. The Semester in Practice Program, the judicial externship pipeline, the faculty who treat office hours as genuine mentorship, the alumni network through Florida Blue Key that extends into every level of government and law, these aren’t incidental perks. They are the institution’s architecture. UF doesn’t ask students to wait until after graduation to do meaningful work. It builds the bridge while you’re still crossing it.
I’m graduating in May 2027. My plan is corporate law, with a focus on litigation, regulatory work and government relations — the spaces where legal strategy and public policy meet. But first, this fall, I get to see how laws are born, and I am ready.
Christian Jubran is a 2L student at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. A double Gator from Jacksonville, Florida, he earned his undergraduate degree in criminology at UF before returning to pursue his legal education.