Coming Soon!

Columbia Law School's summer program, one of the largest in the nation, is an integral part of preparing to practice public interest law. The Center for Public Interest Law oversees the two largest programs, the Public Service Fellowship Program (guaranteed) and the Human Rights Internship Program (by application), which give students the opportunity to receive stipends while providing greatly needed assistance to a wide range of organizations and government agencies in the United States and more than 50 other countries.

Columbia Law School guarantees funding for all 1L and 2L JD students who timely apply and work in eligible public interest summer internships.  Stipends will cover a range of placements both domestic and international including NGO's, not-for-profit organizations, criminal prosecution and defense work, and federal, state and local government agencies.  The guaranteed funding program is due in part to the Public Interest Law Foundation's ongoing efforts to raise money to provide summer stipends for public interest internships, and through a generous grant from the Charles Evans Hughes Foundation.

Unique to Columbia, the Human Rights Internship Program (HRIP), founded in 1984 by Professor Jack Greenberg, is one of the Law School's most important offerings and a chief priority. The program's more than 1,500 "graduates" have been instrumental in drafting the South African Constitution, documenting human-rights abuses of gay and lesbian youth in America's prisons, and establishing the International Criminal Tribunals in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. They also have researched prison conditions in Sri Lanka, helped write a Freedom of Information Act for Guatemala, and worked on environmental law in Hungary. Interns from years past now lead community economic-development efforts, head legal services offices, fight against employment discrimination, and defend death-row inmates.

Participation in the HRIP is by application.  The program enables students to intern at international human rights organizations abroad with a stipend, a plane ticket and intensive training on subjects ranging from basic human rights law to documenting and reporting to international legal research so that they will be grounded in fundamental human rights principles. Each summer, interns may select their placements from among hundreds of pre-established host organizations throughout the world. Students may also elect to pursue internships with new or emerging human rights organizations throughout the world with guidance from six faculty regional program advisors. 

The Center for Public Interest Law works individually with each intern to identify the organization at which he or she can best receive training in human rights law, work in the service of his or her beliefs, create relationships that may advance professional development, and become part of a worldwide network of Columbia graduates and others devoted to human rights. The Center also assists in editing cover letters and resumes, which are then sent out under the HRIP's auspices, giving Columbia students a distinct advantage.

1L/2L

Morrison & Foerster Public Interest Summer Fellowships in Japan
Fellowships will be awarded to 2 Columbia Law School students, who demonstrate an interest in international law, public interest law, and/or working in Japan for the summer. The Fellowship will provide each student with a placement to work in a Japanese ministry/agency, the Japanese legislature, or a non-governmental organization. Each Fellowship will provide a stipend of $15,000 to cover airfare, living and other expenses for the summer.

Morrison & Foerster Fellowship Application

Human Rights First Asylum Project Fellowship
The New York Women's Bar Association Foundation funds a female Columbia Law student to work in the Asylum Program of Human Rights First for 10 weeks of full-time work.  Applications submitted to CPIL are forwarded to HRF, which awards the fellowship and sponsors the intern. Since 1978, Human Rights First (Formerly Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) has worked to protect and promote fundamental human rights and to ensure protection of the rights of refugees, including the right to seek asylum. Human Rights First's Asylum Program is committed to advancing the rights of refugees, comprising torture survivors, victims of religious, political and ethnic persecution, and men and women fleeing from persecution based on gender or sexual orientation. Many of these refugees have been detained at large detention facilities in New York and New Jersey and in county jails around the country.

For information on the fellowship, please contact mcardi@law.columbia.edu

Neil Grossman Summer Fellowship
The Neil Grossman Summer Fellowship funds two Columbia Law School students to work as a summer intern at conservative and/or libertarian legal organizations, including the Cato Institute and the Institute of Justice. The fellowship will provide a stipend of $5,200 to 1Ls and $6,000 to 2Ls and be awarded to students who demonstrate an interest in promoting American public policy based on individual liberty, limited government and the free market. Applications submitted to CPIL are forwarded to Cato and IJ, which award the fellowships and sponsor the interns.

More information coming soon

Jay Newman Summer Travel Fellowship In Israel
Columbia Law School will fund one public interest fellowship in Israel for the summer of 2008.  The Fellowship will fund an internship on a wide variety of public interest legal issues, including civil and human rights, poverty, women's rights, children's rights, immigration, the environment, criminal justice and others.  Because the goal of the fellowship is to give students who come from a different background the opportunity to gain a broader understanding of the state of Israel and its citizens, preference will be given to students with no prior experience in the region.  Hebrew language skills are not required.

Not being offered in 2009.

 2L Only

Goldstein Demchak Baller Borgen & Dardarian Civil Rights Summer Fellowship
The Oakland, California plaintiffs' civil rights and environmental justice law firm Goldstein Demchak Baller Borgen & Dardarian offers a summer position specifically to a Columbia Law School public interest student.  The Fellowship pays $1,000 per week.

GDBBD Summer Fellowship Application

Sidley Austin LLP Public Interest Split Summer Fellowship
The corporate firm of Sidley Austin LLP allows a Columbia student to split their summer between it and a New York City public interest organization of his or her choice while receiving a corporate associate's pay for the full summer.

Sidley Austin Summer Fellowship Application

Cochran Neufeld & Scheck Summer Associate Positions
Cochran Neufeld & Scheck, LLP, a small civil-rights law firm in Tribeca, NYC, reserves 2 summer associate positions for Columbia Law student 2Ls and pre-clerk 3Ls. Its practice seeks to effect systemic change in policing around the country through 42 U.S.C.s. 1983 litigation, primarily on two areas of official misconduct: wrongful convictions (on behalf of DNA exonerees) and serious police brutality. The CNS internship provides a unique opportunity to explore the intersection of criminal and cicil-rights law at every stage of litigation. 2L funding will be matched and 3Ls will be paid on an hourly basis. Hiring will be on a rolling basis.

To apply, please e-mail your resume, a cover letter and a writing sample to Debi Cornwall at debi@cnscivilrights.com

Cochran Neufeld & Scheck, LLP
99 Hudson St., 8th Floor
New York, NY 10013
  

In addition to placements through the Human Rights Internship and Guaranteed Summer Funding programs, the following summer funding opportunities are available through the Law School:
Columbia Arts Law Internships, sponsored and coordinated by the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts, provide opportunities and funding for work in the legal departments of arts-and media-related organizations. In past summers, students interned at organizations such as Educational Broadcasting Corporation's television stations Channel 13 in New York and DCET in Los Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Public Radio, the New York Public Library, the San Francisco City Attorney's Office, and the Audobon Society.

Faculty Research Assistant Positions fund students to work closely with Columbia's public interest faculty on various projects. Past students' projects have ranged from a landmark death penalty study to preparation for a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Committee to a book on the rights of crime victims.

Below is a small sample of the many Columbia Law students who worked in public interest internships during the summer of 2007.  They interned at a wide variety of domestic and international organizations and government agencies.  Here's what they had to say:

Amos Blackman '08 spent his 2L summer at The Legal Aid Society of San Francisco - Employment Law Center.  While there, his work focused on a group of Title VII racial discrimination lawsuits on behalf of African American shipyard workers in Mississippi, writing litigation memos, preparing expert witnesses, and generally assisting in all aspect of pretrial work.  In addition, once a week he counseled low-income Californians in the LAS-ELC's Workers' Rights Clinic, and he represented a client in his unemployment insurance adjudication.  He describes the LAS-ELC as "an amazing office, full of cool and unique attorneys and advocates, who are completely dedicated to their work and haven't lost sight of the bigger picture or their sense of fun. The same goes for the other summer clerks."

Teresa Chen '09  interned at the National Courts section of the Commercial Litigation Branch in the Civil Division, U.S. Dept of Justice. She researched government contract disputes involving fraud, veterans appeals, regulatory takings, attorney fees, tribal funding, export tax refunds, international arbitration choice of law, and many many other issues, as well as written portions of motions and briefs that get filed with the Federal Claims and Federal Circuit courts. Teresa says "I've attended both trials and appellate arguments, and have even traveled with my attorney for an on site visit and tour of the contractor's facilities. It's been a really wonderful summer in terms of getting to see what litigation is all about."

Anna Dupont '09 started out the summer working at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Office for the Defense of Charles Taylor. Most of Anna's work focused on possible challenges to the prosecution's expert witnesses, which ended up being one of the reasons the Trial Chamber cited for delaying the trial...go Anna!  Anna writes "A lot of people wondered whether I felt morally conflicted about working in defense of Charles Taylor, but I think that misses the point, and I have so many new perspectives on due process and fair trial rights as human rights as a result."  After Taylor fired his defense team, Anna secured a position on one of the defense teams at the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia where she wrote memos on the role of duty counsel, the law of provisional release, and the possibilities for acquittal in ICTY jurisprudence.  According to Anna, "the community of legal ex-pats in the Hague is really great - there's always some sort of social event or another going on, and hardly a moment of down time, but for me that's a positive!"

Mojoyin Onijala 09' worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda based in Arusha, Tanzania. She researched jurisprudence on joint criminal enterprise and helped draft indictments and pre trial briefs... all while traveling through East Africa and writing super long emails back home! She will always remember this experience as the time she did her part towards prosecuting those who were responsible for the genocide in Rwanda.

Ted Roethke '08 worked at the Immigrants' Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York doing research for a case challenging the use of diplomatic assurances in removal proceedings as violative of the Convention Against Torture and the Constitution. His research dealt with both domestic and international law, and took him from the basement of the Diamond Law Library to telephone conversations with human rights lawyers and researchers in other countries.



Shilpi Agarwal '09 spent her summer in India at the Majlis Resource Centre, an organization that represents women in marital and domestic violence disputes. Her responsibilities included drafting petitioners and written statements and doing client interviews and intakes. She also had the opportunity to attend court proceedings in the Family Court, District Court, and High Court in Mumbai.  Additionally, Shilpi contributed to and participated in lawyer workshops for advocates in rural and urban Maharashtra that Majlis organizes in order to increase legal literacy around women's issues.

Kate Skolnick '09 worked at the Prisoners' Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society, where she had the opportunity to work in numerous capacities and on myriad issues facing those incarcerated in New York City and State. Specifically, she advocated informally on behalf of State inmates regarding access to fair treatment and humane conditions of confinement, focusing in particular on ensuring that prisoners with hearing impairments and other special needs had access to proper accommodations and programming. Additionally, Kate created several know-your-rights memos to provide to inmates so that they could vindicate their own rights pro se. She also monitored City compliance with a court order concerning shackling of inmates outposted in civilian hospitals. Kate writes "It has been a great experience to feel the impact of my efforts, as well as to work with advocates who have been in the trenches and who remain idealistic and committed to protecting the civil rights of this segment of the population."



Laird Nelson '09 spent her summer at the Northeast Regional Office of the Federal Trade Commission. Laird worked on both antitrust and consumer protection matters for the FTC.  The FTC reviews pending mergers and acquisitions as part of the merger screening process, so she's done research regarding the parties and their industry and interviewed competitors and consumers about potential anticompetitive effects.  For the consumer protection cases Laird interviewed consumers who've filed complaints against companies, drafted declarations and contributed to some investigations of possible violations of other consumer protection laws.

Clark Gard '09  interned at the International Center for Transitional Justice in New York.  He is part of the MENA division and concentrated primarily on issues related to the Iraqi High Tribunal in Baghdad.  Clark writes "I have been given a lot of substantive work and am thrilled with how the summer has turned out so far -- it's only the second week in July and I have already authored two reports that will be published through the ICTJ, and have been asked to stay-on for more work in the Fall.  The ICTJ is a great place both for people with lots of human rights work and field experience, as well as those looking to gain more exposure to international human rights law and transitional justice."

Alicia Washington '09 interned at the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of New York. The attorney Alicia shadowed gave her long-term projects to work on as well as other short-term tasks that were necessary for trial preparation. She researched and composed a response motion and a motion in limine for a sexual assault case. She also researched and assisted in the preparation for an oral argument before the Second Circuit.  Alicia had the opportunity to represent the government during arraignments before magistrate judges and a status conference before a district judge.  She conducted a direct examination of a witness and otherwise assisted in trial preparation for a child pornography prosecution.  Alicia also aided in the execution of mutual legal assistance treaty requests made by foreign countries.

Suzannah Phillips '08 spent her summer at the International Program of the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York. Suzannah has been able to work on very substantive projects and through the brown bag series, gained exposure to a wide variety of international and domestic reproductive health issues. Among several other projects, Suzannah was responsible for drafting a shadow letter on Kenya for the upcoming CEDAW session, and will be sitting in on the session at the end of this month.

Andrew Collins '09  worked with the white collar unit of the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco. He investigated public corruption, researched issues for financial fraud cases, and reviewed documents. He also had his own small case load of misdemeanors, which he personally prosecuted in court, [Andrew writes ]"a rare experience for a law student, and one I never would have had at a firm."

Kaitlin Cordes '08 spent her 2L summer at the Brennan Center for Justice.  While there, she worked on economic justice issues, analyzingstate labor laws, writing legal memos, and helping with a workers' rights lawsuit. Kaitlin writes "The Brennan Center is an amazing organization that does important work related to democracy and justice. (And the softball team has a lot of heart!)"

Crystal Lopez '09 interned at the Asociacion Pro Derechos Humanos  (Pro Human Rights Association) in Lima, Peru. Crystal monitored Peruvian government's compliance with judgments issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, assisted in strengthening international law arguments in two cases submitted to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, and participated in strategy sessions to develop an Amicus Curiae submission to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Liane Rice '09 worked at Lawyers for Human Rights' Refugee Rights Project in Durban, South Africa. Working in a small office serving an overflow of clients, she quickly had her own case load of clients from all over Africa and the Middle East. Combining detailed, one-on-one interviews and research on country conditions, Liane drafted arguments for resettlement, permanent residency, voluntary repatriation, and appeals for rejected asylum applications. The agency also worked closely with local social services and with the UNHCR. Liane was constantly impressed by the dedication and compassion of the refugee rights community in Durban.

Josh Fougere '09 spent his summer working at DOJ in Washington, DC, in the Criminal Division's Office of International Affairs. He worked primarily for the Litigation and Legal Policy team, while also doing some projects for the South America team.  The Office's work focuses on international extraditions and mutual legal assistance (evidence gathering across borders, basically).  Specifically, most of his work has been research and writing for Assistant U.S. Attorneys about DOJ policy on topics related to extraditions (e.g. bail and discovery). Josh has had "an amazing experience, and [would] recommend this internship to anyone!"

Richard Shamos '09 worked at the Manhattan Borough President's Office. He performed research and prepared legal briefs and memos regarding land use and development projects in New York City, including development of a school in Harlem and installation of a power facility by Con Edison.  He attended NYCERS investment meetings and provide legal and business research support, and performed direct client services as part of Immigration Task Force, including investigation of
community concerns and devising policy on fraud-related issues.