It's common knowledge that judges have help writing their decisions, but readers of Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Francois Rivera's rulings might be surprised when they get to the end of his decisions and see the work of his student interns credited explicitly: "researched and drafted with the assistance of…"

In an interview with the New York Law Journal, Rivera talked about how it fits into his efforts to educate student interns and the impact it can have on their careers. This interview has been condensed and edited for style, grammar and clarity.

When and how did you end up crediting students for their work on decisions?

I've been doing it for a couple years now. Nobody told me to do it. I wasn't following anybody's lead. I did it on my own. I don't do it for clerks or court attorneys, just for a student, typically about to enter law school, or a rising 1L or rising 2L. For the last few years, I've been taking on students constantly. I sometimes take students who have limped through their first year of law school; they survived, but their grades aren't what they [expected].

I use the IRAC method—issue, rule, application, conclusion. I teach them how to read a statute. Look up everything; presume nothing. I go over appellate decisions with them. These students are used to reading the way you read college texts, which is a disaster in law school. It's a nightmare. You go through an entire semester with no quizzes, no tests, no nothing. And you're supposed to apply the law of every case you read on hypotheticals at the end. So when I take college kids and I give them decisions to read, I teach them to read deeply.

How does their work on one of your decisions fit into that process?

All these students are reading Appellate Division, Second Department decisions every week. They've got to read the top two or top three and discuss them with me and my court attorney. They start becoming comfortable with legal language.

I give students motion papers, make them read and discuss them, I give them the cases cited and the statutes, and we discuss what we think the outcome should be. College students actually reason through a decision through this method. I give them the decision template. And then they actually have to draft it using the template and using as a guide other decisions that I've written. They come up with a product that I'll edit. I make the drafting process one that's interactive, one where we reason through it together. And then they're saying, "I think that under this, this is what should happen." And I say, "why?"

One student published five opinions from me before law school. When he was interviewing, he was asked: "Do you know what a confession of judgment is?" "Oh, that's CPLR 3218." "How do you know about that?" "I've written in the area." "What do you mean?" "Just type my name in the Law Journal search box." He got the job on the spot.

Can you tell me about some of the highlights?

The fun is when they make the front page. Magdalena Oropeza's work on Ramos v. Uber and Rebecca Medina, with the "ferocious feline" case, both made the Law Journal. Steven Rivera, my son, wrote the "Lemon Juice" one that involved Internet anonymity. One of my students, Sabino Vargas, just got published in the Law Journal. He's thrilled about it.

So this is what I do. It's a joy. It's one of the fun things I do with students. I've never had anyone ask me about it. I did mention it to one or two of my colleagues, but it requires a commitment to work with students quite intensely.