Named Internship Profile Summary - Dennis Zeveloff (McSpadden)
1. [MCSPADDEN PUBLIC POLICY INTERN PROFILE]
Dennis Zeveloff ’12 attended Tenafly High School, where
he was Class President and a recipient of the Robert Byrd
State Honors Scholarship. At Dartmouth he is majoring in
Government and Cognitive Science. Dennis has worked
for the Admissions Office and Academic Skills Center, and
is active in the Dartmouth Outing Club, Casual Thursday--
a comedy improve group-- and Sigma Phi Epsilon. Dennis
was the Presidential Scholar for Emeritus Education
Department Chair Andrew Garrod; they worked on three
books about adolescent development and traveled to
Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina to research education’s
function in a recovering nation. Dennis spent his
freshman summer in Washington DC as a Rockefeller
First-Year-Fellow, working at the US Department of
Education. He spent his junior winter as the SEAD intern for Raymond High School in Raymond,
New Hampshire, assisting an under-resourced rural school with tutoring and college awareness.
This summer Dennis will intern at the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in Chicago, Illinois.
Dennis was funded by The Rockefeller Center for a Summer 2011 Internship, with generous
support from The McSpadden Public Affairs Internship Fund.
Executive Summary from Dennis’ final report:
This summer I was lucky enough to receive Rockefeller Internship Funding to work for the
State’s Attorney’s Office of Cook County, in Chicago, Illinois. I worked in the Downward
Modifications Division of their Conflicts Counsel Unit, which was most often involved with the
Child Support Enforcement Division and the Illinois
“Remembering what I learned in Department of Health Care and Family Services. We
Civic Skills Training, I used my worked to ensure that noncustodial parents continued
spare time to meet the attorneys; to pay child support by modifying their regular
By the end of the summer, the payments. My work ranged from updating clients on
attorneys felt comfortable giving the status of their cases, to filling out legal orders, to
me work they had previously checking case applicability with Illinois state statute,
reserved for law school students.” and assisting the Assistant State’s Attorneys in post-
2. decree, expedited, and suburban courts. I did additional work for the larger Conflicts Counsel
Unit, which included transcribing witness depositions for some of their more time-consuming
cases. I also attended the Prosecutor’s Academy, which allowed undergraduates and law
students to hear directly from the division chiefs of units like Cold Cases, Gangs/Narcotics,
Juvenile Justice, and Anita Alvarez—the state’s attorney herself.
This was the first time I worked in a law-related job, and it certainly gave me a better
understanding of the legal system at some of the lower levels. Remembering what I learned in
Civic Skills Training, I used my spare time to meet the attorneys that were in my same office
space but not my division. By the end of the summer, the attorneys felt comfortable giving me
work they had previously reserved for law school. Being able to work directly with all levels of
staff in the office was an excellent experience, and I left this internship with a better sense of
how public law functions and where I might find my possible place in that system.
Dennis Zeveloff (top left) at his internship with the State’s Attorney’s Office of Cook County,
in Chicago.