Photo: Brenda Gottsabend – CC License

Late to the fellowship party? Interested in children’s rights or education? Pine Tree Legal Assistance, a statewide legal aid organization in Maine, anticipates hiring an attorney for a two-year fellowship in its KIDS LEGAL project (pending a funding request they expect to hear about soon). The KIDS LEGAL project focuses on training and advocacy related to the needs of the 43% of children in Maine from low-income families.  Issues the project addresses includes special education needs, barriers to enrollment, and suspensions of over 10 days. The fellow’s experience will vary widely as he or she handles cases, trains parents and stakeholders on educational rights and responsibilities, and provides consultations for local professionals handling education-related issues.

If this sounds like something for you, check out the full post on PSJD. (Application deadline: July 2nd, 2015)

Calling all summer interns.  If you will be here in DC for the summer, the Washington Council of Lawyers Summer Pro Bono & Public Interest Forum may be an event you want to add to your calendar.

When:  Thursday, June 11, from noon – 2:30 pm

Where: Arnold & Porter (555 12th Street NW).

The keynote speaker, Stephen Bright, is President and Senior Counsel at the Southern Center for Human Rights.  He is a dynamic speaker and certainly someone you’ll want to hear speak.  But that’s not all.  The Summer Forum includes lunch, the keynote address, and the opportunity to learn more about pro bono opportunities and public interest practices in DC by attending a panel highlighting opportunities in these substantive practice areas:

Death Penalty & Criminal Law

Civil Rights & Civil Liberties

Human Rights & Immigration

Non-litigation Practice

Representation of Families and Children

Environmental Law

The Summer Forum is inspirational, informative, and memorable. It also is a great way to demonstrate your support for pro bono work and DC’s public
interest community.

The event routinely sells out, and early bird pricing ends on June 1 – so be
sure to get your tickets soon.  Many employers sponsor their summer interns for this event, so if you’re interested, check with your organization or firm first.

Click here to register!

You can learn more about the Washington Council of Lawyers and all of their upcoming events at www.wclawyers.org.

We were pleased to host Lam Ho, Executive Director of the Community Activism Law Alliance (CALA), as our keynote speaker for the annual Public Interest Luncheon during the NALP Annual Education Conference.  Lam began his career as a Skadden Fellow with the Chicago Legal Assistance Foundation. Prior to founding CALA, he was a staff attorney at Equip for Equality, where he defended the civil rights of people with disabilities.  He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was honored with many awards for his public service and dedication to his community.  In less than 10 years, Lam has made his dream of an organization that serves the marginalized where they live – in their communities – a reality.  If you want to know what community lawyering looks like CALA is a great example.  We were so inspired by the work he’s doing and the individuals he’s able to help. He’s truly uniting lawyers and community activists to bring free legal services back to  underserved populations in Chicago.  Learn more about CALA and Lam here.

We at NALP were privileged to make a modest donation in recognition of Lam’s contribution to our conference and support of CALA’s work.  If you’d like to do the same, below is the contact information, or you can visit the CALA website.

Community Activism Law Alliance

“Lawyering Beyond Boundaries…”

332 S. Michigan Ave.

Suite 1032-C297

Chicago, IL 60604-4434

Phone: (312) 999-0056

Fax: (312) 999-0076

cala@calachicago.org

Any law students out there who haven’t yet joined the American Bar Association, you’ve officially run out of excuses. ABA membership is now free for students, and here’s what a whole lot of nothing will get you, according to the ABA’s own site:

• Access to the ABA Job Board, where members’ resumes are flagged with the ABA logo.
• A chance to apply for over 20 ABA fellowships writing competitions.
• Opportunities to connect with established lawyers and learn about specialized areas of law through ABA sections, divisions and forums.
• Four digital and print issues of Student Lawyer magazine, plus a digital subscription to the monthly ABA Journal.
• Access to the Free Career Advice Series of monthly webinars on various career-related topics such as interviewing wisely, tailoring your career to fit your strengths and putting social media to work for you.
• Free monthly continuing legal education webinars, which deal with real legal issues in different practice areas.
• Access to member-only discounts on everything from Sprint cellular packages to Hertz car rentals to Brooks Brothers clothing.
• All of the other benefits of ABA membership…

More networking opportunities! Another job board! Monthly career webinars! Why are you still reading this!

Go get yourselves membered-up! at https://shop.americanbar.org/eBus/Membership/JoinABA.aspx

Photo: Brenda Gottsabend – CC License

Just yesterday, Pro Bono Publico Award Merit Distinction Honoree Shannon Johnson wrote about how community-minded law students and lawyers should focus on “listening to what a community asks of you.” Well, readers, western North Carolina is asking:

Pisgah Legal Services is a nonprofit law firm providing legal assistance to low-income people in western North Carolina. From its three office locations Asheville, Hendersonville, and Spindale, Pisgah staff and volunteers  helped 14,000 clients last year. Their work involves a wide range of practice areas, and they’re interested in multiple rising 2Ls and 3Ls they’ll be able–ultimately–to throw into a courtroom: “Law clerks will shadow supervising attorneys in the office and in court, but will eventually take on their own caseload and clients[, with] the opportunity to interview clients and attend administrative hearings, judicial hearings, and trials.” If you want to get into court and help low-income clients this summer, Pisgah could be for you. Rising 3Ls, in particular, might apply to become certified legal interns through the NC State Bar.

If this sounds like something for you, check out the full post on PSJD. (Application deadline: April 15th, 2015)

Public interest jobs are competitive, especially right out of law school. A great way to get started is with a fellowship — a position that allows recent law school graduates to practice with nonprofit organizations, the government, educational institutions, and sometimes even law firms.

If you’d like to learn more about public interest fellowships — from fellows themselves — then we invite you to attend Meet the Jolly Good Fellows. At this event, you’ll get to talk to current and former fellows about applying for postgraduate public interest fellowships, the benefits and challenges of being a fellow, and the ways in which a fellowship can jump start your public-interest career. 

Meet the Jolly Good Fellows takes place on Tuesday, March 24, from 6:30 – 8:00 pm at Kirkland & Ellis (655 15th Street, NW). To learn more and register, click here:

We’ll have current and former fellows from organizations such as Legal Counsel for the Elderly, Neighborhood Legal Services Program, National Women’s Law Center, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and more. Public-interest coordinators from several area law schools will also be on hand to answer questions. (Complete list of participating fellows.)

This business-casual event is free for our members, and $5 for non-members, with a one-year Washington Council of Lawyers membership included in the price of admission. 

Photo: Brenda Gottsabend – CC License

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that we at PSJD are big fans of post-graduate fellowships. These choice entry-level positions are ideal ways to begin your public interest law career–for some of them you even get to write your own job description!

Thing is, it can be a challenge to identify the fellowships that fit your interests, plan for each one’s (sometimes quite involved) application process, and research how best to meet the nuanced expectations of the different organizations you’ll need to impress to become a post-graduate fellow. That’s why we do everything we can to help prospective fellows by publishing the PSJD Comprehensive Fellowship Guide.

What does this have to do with this week’s juicy internship? Creating this fellowship resource is a lot of research, and every year we hire a law or graduate student to take on this daunting task. This is a paid position, here in DC, that will require someone to do extensive research and outreach to various fellowship organizations to update the Guide for 2015-2016.

So if you’re interested in a post-graduate fellowship, consider getting a headstart by mastering the field and building your network this summer as the PSJD Publications Coordinator. We’re looking for current law students with the ability to work independently, a high level of attention to detail and accuracy, (preferably) some knowledge of HTML, and a few other choice characteristics.

If this sounds like you, check out the full post on PSJD. (Application deadline: April 3rd, 2015)

Photo: Brenda Gottsabend – CC License

If you want to do public interest work this summer but haven’t been able to figure out how to pay for it, look no further: The Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI)’s Law Student Internship Program is open to all 1L and 2L law students from across the country who are interested in working with legal service agencies in Illinois over the summer. These positions are paid : PILI raises the funds necessary for each agency to pay its PILI Interns (the funds are paid to the agency as a grant, rather than directly to the Intern as with many other internship funding programs).

Interns work 400 hours full-time, with PILI ensuring quality supervision by experienced agency attorneys, and providing extra educational, networking and mentoring opportunities.  Through this program, PILI helps our partner agencies increase their impact while also helping you develop your legal and client interaction skills, build your professional networks, and strengthen your commitment to public interest law and service.  Applications will remain open until all Internship positions are filled.

If this sounds like you, check out the more detailed, full post on PSJD.

An announcement from our friends at BC Law:

Rappaport Foundation Makes $7.5 million gift to BC Law to Fund Center

Boston College Law School has been selected as the new home for the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy. The Center is funded by a $7.53 million gift from the Phyllis & Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation.The gift is the largest in the school’s history, and it will support both the Rappaport Center and the Jerome Lyle Rappaport Visiting Professorship in Law and Public Policy at BC Law.

The Center comprises the long-running Rappaport Fellows Program, which provides 12 paid summer internships to Greater Boston-area law students interested in public service, and the Rappaport Distinguished Public Policy Series, which will conduct scholarly research and host lectures, debates and roundtable discussions on public policy issues with the region’s leading policy makers and thought leaders. The Center will be led by Professor Michael Cassidy, who has held positions in public service ranging from Chief of the Criminal Bureau in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office to membership on the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission.

“This is a landmark moment for our law school,” said BC Law Dean Vincent Rougeau. “We were chosen by the Rappaport Foundation in part because of our track record in training public policy leaders locally and nationally. Our mission aligns closely with the Center’s aspirations and the leadership that Professor Cassidy will offer instilled great confidence in the donors. The Rappaport Center will give an even greater focus to what have always been important components of a BC Law education–serious discussion and study of law and public policy issues, and the training of thoughtful, ethical, and innovative public servants and leaders.”

The Center will open in the spring of 2015. For more, see BC Law Magazine Online.

Photo: Brenda Gottsabend – CC License

So far, the experienced edition of the Job’o’the’Week has focused on great opportunities for attorneys at the top of their fields to push themselves. This week we’re looking at a position that will likely represent a turning point for a formerly entry-level attorney. If you land a job like Surfrider Foundation’s Legal Associate position, you’ve arrived. Any environmental lawyers out there who have put in their time at entry level positions or racked up enough clerkship or fellowship years might consider this position as their first “experienced”-level job.

Surfrider is looking for a full time employee with at least three years of experience and a strong commitment to protecting coastal areas. You can read all about it in the full job post on PSJD. Applications are due on January 5th.