The Honor Law Graduate Program: Make Our Mission Yours (NUREG/BR-0018, Revision 14)
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Publication Information
Date Published: August 2007
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001
A Message from Karen D. Cyr, General Counsel
(Former Honor Law Graduate)
The NRC Honor Law Graduate Program affords graduating law students and judicial law clerks of ability and potential a unique opportunity to begin or continue their legal careers in an exciting and rewarding field of law that will involve them in many of the major issues facing the Nation. Such experience equips members of the program for exciting challenges in the practice of law. We look forward to your application.
Introduction
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is a point of convergence for far-reaching issues of law, technology, energy policy, environmental concerns, and the role of the public in decision-making. The push and pull of conflicting views and varied approaches—from the public, Congress, and the scientific and technical community—frame the issues on which NRC attorneys work every day.
As an independent regulatory agency, the NRC functions both in an administrative capacity, supervising the civilian uses of nuclear energy and materials, and in a quasi-judicial role, as an adjudicator of licensing and enforcement cases. As a result, the Commission’s lawyers are exposed to a broad range of substantive issues and to many aspects of legal practice. NRC attorneys serve as counsel for the NRC’s technical staff in licensing and enforcement cases at the trial and appellate levels; develop the rules to which Commission licensees must conform; prepare briefs defending Commission decisions; argue cases in the United States Courts of Appeals and sometimes District Courts; and advise and counsel the Commission on contracts, personnel, security, labor relations, the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act, and intellectual property. NRC lawyers have helped draft agreements for international cooperation in the nuclear field and have helped the agency to strengthen its security oversight program in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
