Internships

The first Coleman Intern, Jill Moore, performed the research and writing for the Society's publication, the Michigan Supreme Court Historical Reference Guide, published in 1998. 

 The 1999 Coleman Intern, Scott Noto, researched general historical information about the Michigan Supreme Court.  The completed manuscript, a booklet entitled "A Brief History of the Michigan Supreme Court" was published in early 2001 and is available at no charge.

In 2001, Coleman Intern Melissa Witcher researched several topics including the Michigan Supreme Court's role in the Civil Rights Movement. This research resulted in the creation of a PowerPoint presentation with accompanying speech. The presentation is available at no charge by contacting the Society or by clicking here.

Henry Lau, the 2002 Coleman Intern, was selected by the Society and began his work indexing the Society's Oral History collection and making both the text and audio files available on-line. Henry completed his portion of the Oral History project in May 2002 and Michelle Martin picked up where he left off. She continued with the digitization of the audio files, which are now available on our website. To view or hear the histories, click here.

Allyson Miller, the 2003 Coleman Intern, was selected for her academic background in pre-law and history, with a specific focus on Women's Studies, to complete the Society's Women and the Law Project. To view the completed project, click here.

Heather Weeks, the 2004 Coleman Intern, brought strong interest in history and an expertise in research and writing to the position. Heather worked on two major projects - the first was to compile materials for the Index to Special Sessions, and the second was to create a bibliography of research resources, newspaper articles, photographs, and other materials dealing with the Michigan Supreme Court at the Library of Michigan and the State Archives.

In 2005, Caroline Zickgraf, a junior at Michigan State University, assisted in the development of the program for celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Michigan. She also completed the biography of research resources about the Michigan Supreme Court.

In 2006, the Historical Society selected Lance Phillips, Lance developed two new web pages for the Historical Society; the first was a brief history of the Michigan Supreme Court page and the second was a timeline of important events in the history of the Court. During the summer, Lance researched the ways the Court's justices have gotten on the Court and the ways in which they have left the Court.

The 2007 Coleman Intern, Laura Langolf, completed several projects: First, she worked on developing a list of "firsts" among Territorial and state Supreme Court advocates, preparing biographies of some of those advocates, and researching the history of qualification requirements to practice before the early courts. She also developed a list of former court clerks, criers, and recorders and prepared preparing a history of the clerks office and its current role in the judicial system. She also prepared a history and description of the commissioner's office and created a list of former commissioners.

Brittany West, has been selected as the 2008 Coleman Intern. She will be working on gathering visual and supporting materials for the Historical Society’s significant cases project, will be gathering copyright releases for the images, and will be assisting me in some administrative tasks.