Exonerating the Innocent 

In their externships with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, Law students help restore lives by uncovering the truth

By Kenny Ayres

Criminal lawyers work on the principle of innocent until proven guilty, but a pair of third-year students in the Charles Widger School of Law spent the summer operating conversely: helping those incorrectly found guilty prove their innocence.

Taylor Z. Eiserman ’26 JD and Michael Erickson ’26 JD completed externships with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project (PAIP), which works to exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals and assist their reentry into society. Over the past 16 years, PAIP has brought home 36 innocent individuals who collectively spent more than 850 years behind bars. Villanova Law has been a proud partner in that work, not only through student externs like Eiserman and Erickson, but also through alumni who have contributed their expertise pro bono.

“Most people think of the criminal justice system in terms of arrest, trial and conviction, but some mistakes are made in that process,” says Matt McGovern, JD, director of Experiential Learning in the Law School. “These students help remedy those mistakes.”

This externship, like others offered as part of Villanova Law’s experiential learning curriculum, places students in a legal setting where they are supervised on site by an attorney of record for any legal work they complete. They participate in a weekly, in-depth seminar with those on-site lawyers and receive guidance from a Villanova faculty supervisor for a reflective academic component.

“Working with PAIP helps students figure out how to take doctrine and apply it to solve a problem,” says Professor of Law Doris DelTosto Brogan ’81 JD, Heller McGuiness Leadership Chair emeritus, chair of the PAIP board of directors and longtime faculty adviser to the Villanova externs in the organization. “The criminal legal system is foundational to our entire legal system. In whatever area of law you are practicing, it’s essential to know why and how we punish, and whether we got it right.”

“The Project does a great job of trying to expose us to those various dimensions of criminal justice,” Erickson adds.

Erickson spent the summer investigating files and drafting reports opining on whether a case meets the strict requirements for PAIP acceptance. Eiserman, working in her second consecutive externship with PAIP, drafted legal correspondence requesting access to the prosecutor’s case files from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office. Both students worked on the early stages of these complex cases, which often take years—or even decades—to resolve, if they move forward at all.

Neither student plans to work exclusively in post-conviction law: Eiserman hopes to become a juvenile criminal defense attorney, while Erickson is drawn to international criminal law. Still, both agree that the experience left a lasting impression, particularly witnessing the dedication from the entire post-conviction legal community to unlock the truth and restore lives.

“This is invaluable and incredibly necessary work,” Eiserman said. “It’s been really meaningful to be part of that side of humanity.”