Yugoslavian war crimes. Israel’s judicial system.

Those are topics most people would know only through reading, but Lawrence native Trevor Ulbrick had a behind-the-scenes look at both in one eye-opening year.

“I really wanted to get two different perspectives,” the 1993 Lawrence High School graduate said.

Ulbrick, 30, a recent graduate of Northwestern University’s School of Law, found himself in the hunt for a new experience when a position at a New York law firm fell through. On something of a whim, he applied for several international clerkships. To his surprise, he found two that fit.

To him, the experiences couldn’t have been more diverse.

He worked as a clerk for the Supreme Court of Israel from September to December 2005. He followed that up by working as a clerk in the office of the prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands.

Because Israel is a relatively young state, it continues to look to other countries’ common forms of law. Ulbrick would take cases confronting Israel’s Supreme Court and study how courts in the U.S. would handle them.

Ulbrick said he found the Israeli court open and responsive to the people. The court can take up an alleged violation of human rights immediately.

Trevor Ulbrick, a 1993 Lawrence High School graduate and a recent graduate of Northwestern University's School of Law, found himself seeking a new experience when a position at a U.S. law firm fell through. He applied for several international clerkships and worked in Israel and the Netherlands.

Take the case of Guantanamo Bay prisoner Salim Hamdan, Ulbrick said. It took four years before the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in last week on whether the Yemeni man’s rights were violated. It wouldn’t take that long in Israel, Ulbrick said.

“To me, it felt like a body of justice that was very accessible to the people,” he said.

At The Hague, Ulbrick worked in the appeals section of the criminal court. He read through the transcripts of witness accounts to the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia.

There were horrific acts of degradation and torture. He read accounts of things that people want to believe don’t happen, he said.

It’s one thing to hear about it on the news, Ulbrick said, but “it’s a very different thing to actually read what people write.”

At The Hague, he picked up an appreciation for the International Criminal Court, which the U.S. has refused to join. But such a court is crucial for justice, Ulbrick said.

Ulbrick grew up in Lawrence. He said he was a so-so student, getting good grades in the subjects he liked.

After high school, he went to Washington and Lee University in Virginia. But he kept going. He earned a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of London and then a master’s degree in International relations from the University of Chicago. He also found time to teach English and study Chinese in Taiwan and to travel to South Korea.

Janet Hill of Eudora was Ulbrick’s baby sitter when he was a child. She recalled pushing him in a stroller.

“He loved to be outside,” she said. “He loved to explore. He’s kind of done that throughout his life.”

Ulbrick’s father, George Ulbrick, said the family traveled a bit when Ulbrick was young, but not enough to predict that Trevor would have such varied experiences in adulthood. But he does like hearing about them.

“I kind of enjoy getting vicarious reports,” George Ulbrick said.

Trevor Ulbrick is spending time in Lawrence this month studying for the Washington, D.C., bar. He plans to move to the nation’s capital and practice corporate law and eventually work in international law for the government.