Social Justice Initiatives (SJI) provides career services and programming for students and graduates interested in public interest, international human rights, public service/government, and legal volunteer work. SJI also implements and oversees Columbia Law School’s Pro Bono Program, which connects students with attorney-supervised projects in the public good, as well as the Law School’s Guaranteed Summer Funding Program.
The Position
Columbia Law School is pleased to offer Public Interest and Government Fellowships (“Fellowships”) for J.D. graduates of ABA-accredited law schools interested in beginning their careers in public interest law, including human rights, or in government service. 1 The Fellowships serve two important purposes. First, they allow graduates to gain the experience, skills, and professional networks they need to obtain permanent paid positions in their fields. Second, they enable public interest organizations and government agencies confronting great demand and diminished resources to benefit from the services of talented lawyers.
To be considered for a Fellowship, applicants must first obtain a written commitment by a “qualified host” to provide meaningful legal work and supervision. A qualified host is a public interest organization or government agency (federal, state, local, multinational, or international) that commits, contingent upon the applicant’s receipt of a Fellowship, to:
Provide the applicant with a position for a one-year period that will require the use of his or her legal education
Provide appropriate training and supervision during the fellowship period
Consider the fellow for an appropriate permanent full-time paid position if applicable funding becomes available
The J.D. Public Interest and Government Fellowships pay a stipend of $40,000 for one year of fulltime work. Fellows must commit to work full-time at their host (at least 35 hours per week) for
twelve consecutive months.
The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) is an association of over 2,500 legal career professionals who advise law students, lawyers, law offices, and law schools in North America and beyond. Since 2003, NALP has housed and administered PSJD. PSJD is an online public interest/public sector jobs database for law students and lawyers seeking internships, fellowships, or permanent positions. PSJD offers law students and lawyers the most extensive listing of legal and law-related public service opportunities available anywhere.
The Position
NALP seeks three to four summer project assistants to help update and maintain database content on its PSJD website.The PA team’s main responsibility will be updating and maintaining the PSJD database, employer directory, and resource center. The hourly rate is $11-$13 per hour, depending on experience. A minimum of 8-10 hours per week will be required during office hours (Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM). Work must be performed in our offices; telecommuting is not possible for these positions.
Project assistants receive a comprehensive view of the public interest job market which can be an invaluable tool for their own career roadmap. This position is a great opportunity for law students who will be doing public interest work in DC this summer and are looking for supplemental income.
PSJD (formerly PSLawNet) is a unique online clearinghouse for law students and lawyers to connect with public interest job listings and career-building resources. Created in 1989 at NYU Law, PSJD has been maintained by the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) as one of its Public Service Initiatives since 2003.
The Position
The PSJD Fellow is the principal manager and administrator of the PSJD.org website. PSJD, a NALP initiative, catalogues thousands of job announcements for public service legal positions each year and curates a directory of civil society, government, and other public-service-oriented employers. The site also publishes a library of professional development and career search resources to assist jobseekers with legal training pursuing public service careers. Law students and alumni from hundreds of law schools in the United States and Canada rely on these materials to help them discover opportunities and make decisions about their public service careers. In addition, the Fellow gains non-profit management and administration experience and has the opportunity to write for publication, speak publicly, and build relationships with public interest organizations across the country.
The Fellow will work at NALP’s Washington, DC office–with some travel required (varying slightly, year-to-year).
Texas Defender Service (TDS) is a non-profit organization established in 1995 by experienced Texas death penalty attorneys.Our mission is to establish a fair and just criminal justice system in Texas.
TDS aims to improve the quality of representation afforded to those facing a death sentence and to expose and eradicate the systemic flaws plaguing the Texas death penalty.
The Position
TDS seeks summer law students for full-time internships in their Austin and Houston offices to assist in all aspects of TDS’s work. Summer law interns must be capable of performing both high-level legal research and briefing along with ground-level intensive investigative work. When possible, students will also attend local trainings, trials and oral arguments. Students will receive training on how to conduct mitigation investigation in capital cases both in preparation for trial and post-conviction briefing. They will receive regular feedback throughout the summer on both written and investigative work.
Located in downtown Pittsburgh, Ruder Law represents parents and students throughout Western Pennsylvania. Our firm helps families obtain needed educational services for students with disabilities in all school environments, from preschool, through elementary and secondary school, into college and vocational programs.
The Position
Ruder Law seeks an associate attorney for a full-time position. The attorney will represent parents and students in matters involving the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The attorney will independently manage all aspects of a busy caseload, including interviewing clients, drafting memoranda and briefs, advocating in IEP meetings, filing complaints and litigating due process claims before the Office for Dispute Resolution.
The candidate should have at least 1-3 years of legal experience.
The International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) provides professional advice and technical assistance in promoting democracy and serves as an information clearinghouse on elections, rule of law, governance, and civil society.
IFES annually awards two to four Democracy Studies Fellowships to bring outstanding graduate students to Washington, D.C. to engage in democracy development research. Based at IFES’ Center for Applied Research and Learning, fellows have access to IFES experts and conduct independent research with IFES mentors for six to ten weeks. At the end of the program, fellows must complete a paper for presentation to the public or IFES colleagues.
The Position
Hosted by IFES, Manatt Fellows carry out research at the organization’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., for a period of four to six weeks. The Manatt Fellowship consists of a $5,000 stipend to subsidize fellows’ living expenses while in D.C.
The Manatt Fellowship is open to Ph.D., master’s and law students who are working toward a degree or concentration in international relations, political science, public administration, public interest law or a related area at a university in one of the following states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota or Wisconsin. Successful applicants will demonstrate how their research can directly benefit from IFES’ institutional expertise, as well as how their research could contribute to IFES’ technical leadership in the democracy and election assistance field.
The Texas Civil Rights Project is boldly serving the movement for equality and justice in and out of the courts. We use our tools of litigation and legal advocacy to protect and advance the civil rights of everyone in Texas and we partner with communities across the state to serve the rising movement for social justice. We undertake our work with a vision of a Texas in which all communities can thrive with dignity, justice and without fear.
The Position
The Texas Civil Rights Project (“TCRP”) seeks a senior or experienced attorney (five years post-J.D. experience) for its Racial & Economic Justice Program. This position will focus on impact litigation and other advocacy related to civil and human rights, and will be based in our Alamo, Texas office in the Rio Grande Valley, with an option to transfer to one of TCRP’s other offices after one year.
Our senior Racial & Economic Justice attorney will work closely with Program Director Efrén C. Olivares to develop and implement TCRP’s litigation strategy, including challenging discriminatory policies and practices based on arbitrary criteria, with a focus on defending the rights of individuals and communities in South Texas in the face of new and rising threats. TCRP’s Racial and Economic Justice Program uses creative legal advocacy and litigation to represent historically or socioeconomically marginalized individuals and communities. By fighting discrimination based on immutable characteristics, immigration status, poverty, and other arbitrary criteria, we work to promote a fair, equitable, and just Texas for everyone.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. The principal objectives of the NAACP are to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of all persons. As part of its mission, the NAACP seeks to enforce federal, state, and local laws securing civil rights and to educate persons about their constitutional rights.
Throughout its history, the NAACP has provided attorneys the opportunity to make significant, historic contributions to the field of civil rights law. Past NAACP attorneys include Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker-Motley, Robert Carter and Nathaniel Jones. The NAACP hopes to inspire attorneys to enter the field of civil rights law and to provide broad exposure to various strategies utilized by grass roots civil rights organizations.
The Position
The NAACP Law Fellow Program is designed to give individuals who have completed at least one year of law school the opportunity to work for the summer at NAACP Headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. The NAACP Law Fellow Program is made possible through the generous support of the Kellogg’s Corporate Citizenship Fund, which has funded the program since its inception in 2003. This year, the NAACP Law Fellow Program celebrates its 17th Anniversary. The Law Fellow Program is contingent upon continued funding.
The Law Fellow Program continues to provide law students with first-hand exposure to civil rights advocacy and many other facets of the legal profession. Through working with the Legal Department and networking with lawyers in many different legal arenas, our summer Law Fellows see the multiple roles lawyers play in shaping American society. One recent Law Fellow participant emphasized the program’s importance to her: “I met lawyers and judges and participated in discussions with practitioners about law and policy. I’ve gained a new and different perspective that has made a tremendous contribution to my personal and professional growth.” In our 17th year, we look forward to continuing and building upon our work growing the next generation of civil rights advocates.
Pro Bono Net is a national, non-profit organization that works in close partnership with non-profit legal organizations across the country to increase access to justice for poor and moderate-income people and other vulnerable populations. It seeks to do so through: (i) supporting the innovative and effective use of technology by the nonprofit legal sector, (ii) increasing participation by volunteers, and (iii) facilitating collaborations among nonprofit legal organizations and advocates working on similar issues or in the same region.
Position
Pro Bono Net seeks a highly qualified candidate to join our team as Legal Empowerment and Technology Fellow. The Fellow will play a key role in designing and implementing an innovative project focusing on the use of technology to advance legal empowerment strategies, with an emphasis on approaches to building legal capacity and agency within local communities to tackle civil justice problems. This is a full-time, paid position based in New York City with a generous benefit package, including 4 weeks of paid vacation. This Fellowship is funded through December 2020 under an Open Society Foundation grant to Pro Bono Net.
The Capital Appeals Project (CAP) is a non-profit law office based in New Orleans, Louisiana that provides capital appellate and post-conviction representation to indigent people on Louisiana’s death row. CAP provides high-quality representation in the state and federal courts throughout Louisiana, and acts as a resource to public defenders and criminal defense lawyers across the state. CAP attorneys have successfully represented clients in state district courts, the Louisiana Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court, which in turn has improved the quality and standards of representation for indigent capital defendants in Louisiana. We also represent a number of non-capital juvenile clients in proceedings implementing the recent Supreme Court decisions which limit life without parole sentences for juvenile offenders.
Position
CAP is seeking applicants for a one-year fellowship. The fellow will help represent defendants from the time they are sentenced to death through their direct appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court and petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court, as well as in state post-conviction and federal habeas.
The fellow will be supervised by senior attorneys, and will have a substantial role in informing the litigation strategies, reviewing records, meeting with clients, conducting legal research, drafting appellate briefs, mooting oral arguments, and conducting investigation. The fellowship is potentially renewable for a second year.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. The application deadline is February 15, 2019.
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