Natalie Wright, a second-year WVU College of Law student, poses in front of the Bird's Nest, the stadium that was home to the opening and closing ceremonies for the Beijing Games as well as the track and field events. Wright spent her summer vacation in Shanghai and Beijing, setting up a nonprofit company and learning about the Chinese legal system. (Photo courtesy of Natalie Wright)
CHARLESTON - As the world prepared to focus on China for the start 2008 Summer Olympics, a West Virginia University law student was returning from the same country, where she was creating an international presence for herself.
Natalie Wright, a second-year WVU College of Law student, spent her summer vacation in Shanghai and Beijing, setting up a nonprofit company and learning about the Chinese legal system.
"I have a dream of improving judicial independence in countries undergoing political and economic transition," Wright said. "Each study abroad gives me the opportunity to live under a different judicial system and government, allowing me to compare and take from the best systems."
Accion International, a Boston-based human outreach firm, hired Wright to open its newest Asia office in Beijing. The company started in 1961 as a student-ran, volunteer effort to address poverty in Latin America.
The company since has expanded across America, Asia and Africa and makes low-interest loans to new entrepreneurs in economically depressed regions.
The experience working for Accion was Wright's second summer out of the country as a WVU law student. She also studied law in Brazil during the 2007 summer.
Wright's summer in China was made in part because of WVU's Mandarin Study Abroad Program, which links WVU with Suzhou University, a school 35 minutes from Shanghai.
In preparation for her time in China, the Maryland native studied Mandarin Chinese at a Maryland elementary school and attended cultural events in Washington, D.C. Wright also met with representatives at WVU's Office of International Programs, where she met people who had connections to China.
"WVU really prepared me in a lot of ways for both my jobs this summer as well as my future dream jobs of clerking for a judge and working as a foreign attorney," Wright said.
While in China, Wright looked up other College of Law alumni and found that WVU had an international networking presence. She found two alumni working in Shanghai and Hong Kong, including Charles McElwee of Squire, Sanders and Dempsey, who took her to lunch.
Wright said McElwee shared his experiences of teaching at a university, working as a foreign attorney and raising a family in China.
Although faced with the obstacle of learning Mandarin, one of the world's most intricate languages, Wright said she highly recommends that students take advantage of study abroad programs, which she feels has helped her career.
"I feel I have a much better handle on the differences between code and common law systems, legal research in each system, and various judicial election procedures," Wright said. "This knowledge will help me to answer the future questions of foreign judges and judicial staff when they prepare for the reform that improves judicial independence.
"Judicial independence pours, not trickles down, benefits onto the citizens of a country and the citizens of the world. After working in the legal and diplomatic professions, I would love to finish my career returning to a university to pass on to the next generation every experience accumulated and lesson learned during my life."
