FIVE ALL-STARS Evan Kohlmann L'04 Eric Rothschild L'93 Miguel Rodriguez C'94 L'99 Derek Pew L'93 Aretha Delight Davis L'97

Kohlmann got an internship at The Investigative Project, a Washington think tank, and immersed himself in studying terrorist networks. He attended briefings with President Clinton’s terrorism adviser, Richard Clarke, and interviewed suspected terrorists, or at least people who knew suspected terrorists.

“But when I was done, it seemed like I should go to law school,” he said. “I suspected I would always study counter-terrorism, but that I would be a conventional lawyer of some sort.” He arrived at Penn Law School in August 2001. A couple of weeks later, the 9/11 attacks made Kohlmann realize he was not going to take that conventional lawyering route. He said he had come to Penn over Georgetown Law because of its smaller class size and the sense it was more collegial than other schools. He already had in mind what he was interested in and needed the freedom to be able to do that, which Penn, he said, afforded him.