When the Stakes Are High, She Kicks Into High Gear
In a control room surrounded by agents from the FBI, DEA, and Department of Homeland Security, then-first-year law student Melissa Alburo assisted her supervisor as he guided federal officers through the relevant details of search-and-seizure law during a predawn raid.
Not a typical scenario for a first-year law student, but this was Alburo’s reality during her summer internship at the US Attorney’s Office (Massachusetts district), where she helped build a case against a gang selling college students in Massachusetts and New Hampshire counterfeit Adderall laced with highly addictive fentanyl. It’s likely, she says, the students were buying the prescription ADHD medication for focus during exam periods.
“Being in that room as a 1L was intense. I was in class learning the basics and at the same time helping decide which evidence could legally be gathered during arrests,” recalls Alburo. She went on to draft pretrial detention memos—documents where prosecutors lay out the case for denying bail—for each gang member.
She gathered extensive evidence including photos of drug buys, agency reports, informant statements, and video surveillance to successfully make the case.
For Alburo, who graduates from Suffolk Law on May 18, a combination of expert training from professors and high-pressure, real-world situations became the foundation of her legal education. In September, she’ll bring her experience to the New York Attorney General’s Office, where she’s earned a coveted two-year fellowship in the Housing Protection Unit.
During her second year at Suffolk, as a student attorney at Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, Alburo went up against “a notorious landlord” who had left a young mother and her three children living with black mold, leaking faucets, a shower that didn’t function, and broken windows. The youngest child had developed asthma from the toxic environment, yet the landlord repeatedly ignored court orders to make repairs, she says.
“On my last day at the internship,” Alburo says, “I stood in housing court arguing a motion to enforce [an out-of-court agreement]. We secured a $5,000 settlement and mandatory repairs verified by housing authorities. Seeing that mother finally get justice was one of my most rewarding moments in law school.” It was a critical victory for a family with a Section 8 voucher who had no other timely options in Boston’s expensive housing market.
This year, working under Professor Christina Miller, director of Suffolk’s Prosecutors Clinic, Alburo managed her own caseload, standing before judges to represent the Commonwealth in criminal proceedings. “Professor Miller brought in professionals who showed us how modern prosecution has evolved,” Alburo explains. “We learned to look beyond convictions and to consider balanced outcomes that serve justice.”
This perspective helped her secure alternative sentencing for a college student caught in a shoplifting scheme, allowing him to continue his nursing education. “Seeing certain cases get resolved without jail time—working together with defense counsel, probation, and the client—was an important lesson,” she says.
From the US Attorney’s Office to Boston Municipal Court to housing court, Alburo acknowledges there have been “some stressful moments, some sleepless nights.” But as she prepares to head to the Attorney General’s Office in New York, she feels ready to start a new chapter: “Suffolk has given me the confidence to handle challenging cases where the stakes are high.”