Rudman Summer Fellow of the Week: Om Pandya
Om Pandya is a Rising 2L. He is working at the N.H. Department of Revenue Administration this summer.
Om Pandya describes lessons he learned reviewing a 5,000-page document with the help of his supervisor.
(The following excerpts from a recorded interview have been edited for clarity and brevity.)
On the work of the NH Department of Revenue Administration:
They have a legal bureau that handles cases surrounding taxpayer issues, audits, and collection issues. It often involves collection fraud, tobacco seizures, e-cigarette seizures, bankruptcy, and a few other things that I don't know of yet. I am working under the General Counsel of NHDRA right now, who basically handles all of the legal issues for the DRA, or if there's any complaint regarding any statutory interpretation; I work around those issues and all of the hearings that are novel enough.to raise state constitutional issues. Ultimately, I work under my supervisors, doing research and writing for them. It's really fun.
On his work at the NH DRA:
Every day is different. The audit team audits various businesses or individuals every day. Unfortunately, there are a lot of defaulters who do not follow the correct regulations or missed their statute of limitations, or did not follow the guidelines. The hearing officer at the DRA is the last resort. I'm part of the legal bureau, so I get to sit in on almost every hearing, unless they don't allow any legal interns, which has never happened. So I get to see a lot.
I've attended, I think, at least nine hearings, and it has always been fun. The hearing officer is always kind enough to let me read and go through the client and department briefs 15 minutes before the hearing starts. So I have an understanding of what will be going on.
Some of his goals this summer:
I'm almost there – achieving my major goal, which is writing a whole memo about a complaint. The whole memo is about 30 pages long, and I’ve been writing it for about four weeks already. I'm enjoying that. I get a lot of tips from my supervisors, so that helps me a lot. And hopefully I’ll get to write a post-hearing brief. If I'm able to do that, I think that will be the icing on the cake.
The Rudman Center fellowships support students who work during the summer for government agencies or 501(c)3 non-profit organizations that perform public interest legal work. For more on the Rudman Summer Fellowship program, visit .
