Career Paths: Sam Romano ’23L After graduation, Sam Romano will work as a Deputy District Attorney at the Denver DA’s Office.

Sam Romano ’23L

Sam Romano ‘23L is from Los Angeles, California. He attended the University of California, Berkeley where he received a B.A. in Political Science. After college, Sam researched protection methods for interpreters in Iraq and Afghanistan and worked as a legal assistant at a small law firm in Los Angeles. At W&L, he is a Managing Editor of the Law Review and is the Co-President of the Jewish Law Students Association and the National Security and Military Law Society. Sam lives in Lexington with his fiancée, Pnina, and his cat, Sanka.

Where will you be working after graduation and in what practice area?

I’ll be working as a Deputy District Attorney at the Denver DA’s Office. Deputy DAs typically start by prosecuting misdemeanor offenses and work their way up to felonies.

Did you know coming into law school that you wanted to be a prosecutor?

Yes! I actually chose to attend law school because I wanted to prosecute hate crimes in the wake of attacks in synagogues across the country.

Was there anything in your law school or summer job experience that confirmed this career choice?

Taking Criminal Law with Professor Alexandra Klein confirmed that I wanted to be a prosecutor, and my externship experiences with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Air Force were instrumental in validating that career choice. I also attended professors’ office hours frequently to discuss my career choice—my professors’ willingness to just sit and talk about my interests and career options was one of my favorite parts of attending W&L.

What classes do you think are helpful to prepare for this job? 

Any class related to Criminal Law is extremely helpful, and I would recommend taking as many of W&L’s offerings as possible. I particularly enjoyed criminal procedure courses because of how complex the law can be in that area. I’d also encourage any student interested in Criminal Law to take some more tangential classes, like Business Associations, because they can help you understand different aspects of criminal cases.

A lot of the required 1L classes are also super helpful! Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, and Evidence are all extremely important, and I was lucky to have great professors who laid a foundation for me throughout law school.

Can you describe the job search process?

The job search process is never easy, and mine was no exception. That said, I strongly believe that any opportunity can be the right one, so I applied to DA’s offices around the country that aligned with my beliefs about the criminal justice system and interviewed for as many positions as possible.

The Office of Career Strategy was extremely helpful and deserves their own shoutout—I actually first met the Denver District Attorney at a hiring fair suggested by Ms. Coleman Jackson. From there, it was just about choosing the right office for me, and I’m really happy to have ended up in Denver!

What are you most looking forward to about this job?

I’m excited to start working on my own cases and to get courtroom experience right after law school!