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Description
The Center for Constitutional Rights seeks experienced second- or third-year law students or LLM students with a strong commitment to social justice to provide legal research and analysis as part of a semester-long paid internship or externship opportunity. The Center for Constitutional Rights is a national not-for-profit organization that works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through creative litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, we have taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach. The Center for Constitutional Rights' fall and spring legal internships are part of a year-round internship program that includes our summer Ella Baker Program.
The intern will spend 12-20 hours per week between January and May 2025 assisting attorneys on projects. This position will be completed remotely. It may be possible to provide placements for part-time in-person positions or hybrid in-person and remote positions, but this will need to be discussed with the candidate.
Responsibilities
Interns will have the opportunity to work with attorneys on a range of projects. Our work includes issues related to policing; prisoners’ rights; immigration; racial justice; Indigenous rights; environmental justice; gender justice and LGBTQIA+ rights; national security; corporate accountability; torture; detention; suppression of dissent; anti-militarism; international solidarity, including support for Palestinian rights; violations under the Alien Tort Statute, the Torture Victim Protection Act, and universal jurisdiction; and related work local to the Southern United States. For background on our work, see our issue areas and projects: Abusive Immigration Practices; Corporate Human Rights Abuses; Criminalizing Dissent; Discriminatory Policing; Drone Killings; Government Surveillance; Guantanamo; LGBTQI Persecution; Mass Incarceration; Muslim Profiling; Palestinian Solidarity; Racial Injustice; Sexual and Gender-Based Violence; Torture, War Crimes, & Militarism; Southern Justice Rising; and Open Records Project.
Responsibilities may include: assisting in legal research and writing; performing factual research; reviewing and indexing document productions; assisting in writing reports and engaging in advocacy; preparing correspondence with clients, community members, partners, and government and international agencies; and assisting with hearing, trial, and discovery preparation.
Qualifications
The ideal candidate will have some experience with one or more of the following: litigation in federal courts; international law (with a focus on human rights, humanitarian law, and/or criminal law); FOIA litigation; engaging with U.N. special procedure mechanisms; First Amendment law; immigration law; prisoners’ rights; Section 1983 police misconduct litigation; class action litigation; national security law; and working with communities to advocate for social change. Candidates should also demonstrate experience in and/or commitment to social justice, organizing, and/or social movements.
Compensation
Selected student interns are encouraged to seek external funding. If interns are unable to secure funding, they are eligible to receive pro-rated funding based on hours worked and degree pursued at a range of $2,200 to $7,500. The Center for Constitutional Rights also works with student interns to secure academic credit for internships/externships from their schools when available.
Contact
Qualified candidates should prepare a resume, cover letter, brief legal writing sample, and list of three references as one PDF document, with your name in the document title, prior to applying via our application web form. Please do not submit reference letters. Your cover letter should include your availability over the term and the particular project areas you are interested in. Please note any program deadlines clearly in your application. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis and strong consideration will be given to early applicants. The Center for Constitutional Rights is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and actively recruits people of color, women, people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ and gender non-conforming people. No phone calls please.