Website Lawyering Project
POSITION SUMMARY
Founded in 2017, the Lawyering Project is a legal advocacy organization that blends traditional impact litigation with movement lawyering to promote reproductive health, rights, and justice throughout the United States. We are fiscally sponsored by the Tides Center, a 501(c)(3) organization.
Laws that undermine reproductive health, rights, and justice deprive people of moral agency, rob us of control over our bodies, and compound other forms of oppression like racism, sexism, and poverty. Our mission is to eliminate these laws and the harmful impacts they have on people’s lives. We are especially focused on laws that limit the availability or affordability of abortion care; contribute to disparities in reproductive health outcomes; embody gender-based stereotypes; or discriminate against people based on their reproductive decisions.
Our goal is a legal system that enables each of us to make decisions about intensely personal matters like sex, pregnancy, family, and healthcare based on our own beliefs and values, and ensures that we all have the resources we need to carry out those decisions.
We have two legal programs: Constitutional Litigation and Access & Innovation. These complementary programs seek to eliminate barriers to abortion access and uphold the dignity of people seeking and providing abortion care. The Constitutional Litigation Program focuses on developing and prosecuting constitutional challenges to restrictive abortion laws. The Access & Innovation Program supports abortion access and innovation in service delivery by providing legal services to abortion providers, researchers, and advocates. The goal of this work is to remove practical barriers to abortion access and innovation that cannot be addressed through constitutional litigation. For further information, visit www.lawyeringproject.org.
The Lawyering Project is seeking a legal intern to assist with both of the Lawyering Project’s legal programs during the summer of 2023. The legal internship is remote and can span between eight and twelve weeks.
If the legal intern’s law school provides summer internship funding, we ask that the legal intern obtain funding from their law school. If the law school does not provide funding for summer internships, or if the law school provides funding that amounts to less than $625 per week, the Lawyering Project will provide the intern funding or supplement the intern’s funding to bring it up to $625 per week for up to 12 weeks ($7,500 in total).
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- Provide legal research, writing and analysis to support the Lawyering Project’s ongoing constitutional litigation.
- Assist with fact and evidence development, witness preparation, and trial preparation for the Lawyering Project’s ongoing constitutional litigation.
- Provide legal research, writing and analysis to support the Lawyering Project’s Access & Innovation program.
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE
The legal intern must be currently enrolled in law school.
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES
The legal intern must have
- A demonstrated commitment to social justice and an interest in reproductive health, rights, and justice.
- Skill in legal research, writing, and analysis.
- Ability to analyze complex legal issues, meet deadlines, work well under pressure, and contribute to a collaborative team environment and a diverse, equitable, and inclusive work culture that encourages and celebrates differences.
ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
The legal intern will report to a Litigation Counsel and work closely with other Lawyering Project staff.
PHYSICAL DEMANDS
This is a remote working position that will require working for extended periods of time from a computer. The legal intern will not be required to travel.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
This is a temporary, remote, summer internship position that requires 35 hours per week of work. The summer internship can run anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks. We will consider candidates who will be splitting their summers on a case-by-case basis.
TO APPLY:
Please submit a cover letter, resume, legal writing sample (5-10 pages), and list of two professional references to [email protected]. Please write “Summer Internship” in the subject line of the email.
To best achieve our mission, the Lawyering Project is committed to cultivating an inclusive and equitable workplace in which differences are acknowledged and valued. Accordingly, we are also asking all internship candidates to do the following: in a section of the cover letter, please describe, in no more than 150 words, the identities, perspectives, and experiences that you would bring to the Lawyering Project that are important to you and/or relevant to our work.
Internship applications will be accepted until January 2, 2023.
EEO NOTE:
The Lawyering Project is an equal opportunity employer. We will not discriminate against any applicant or employee because of race, religion, sex, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. We will make reasonable accommodations for pregnant or disabled applicants. Please advise us in writing of any special needs when you apply.