Who We Are
Public Justice is a nonprofit legal advocacy organization that takes on the biggest systemic threats to justice of our time—abusive corporate power and predatory practices, the assault on civil rights, and the destruction of the Earth’s sustainability. It connects high impact litigation with strategic communications and the strength of our partnerships to fight these abusive and discriminatory systems and win social and economic justice.
What We Are Looking For
Public Justice seeks to hire four law clerks for Summer 2027, one in each of our four project areas. While each law clerk will focus on a single project area, they may work in other project areas as need and opportunity arise. Our four project areas are:
•The Access to Justice Project seeks to make the civil court system a fair, equitable, and effective tool for those with less power to win just outcomes. Primarily through high-impact litigation, we dismantle the procedural and structural barriers between ordinary people and the civil justice system, such as forced arbitration, limits on collective actions, overly strict standing requirements, and unwarranted court secrecy.
•The Debtors’ Prison Project fights to end the criminalization of poverty and shrink the carceral system. Working with allies and impacted communities, we use litigation, advocacy, and education to ensure no one is jailed simply because they can’t pay and to stop governments and for-profit corporations from treating people impacted by the system as a revenue source.
•The Students’ Civil Rights Project works to ensure that schools create safe and equitable learning environments, free from discrimination, so all students can learn and thrive. We use high-impact litigation and other advocacy tools to combat discrimination in schools, focusing primarily on racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. When schools fail their students, we take them to court to secure long-lasting, systemic change and justice for the students. We also work to empower students–including students of color, LGBTQ+ students, and student survivors of sexual harassment–to press for change in their schools.
•The Environmental Enforcement Project goes to court every day to fight climate change, secure environmental justice, and make polluters pay. We utilize the most powerful tools available to citizens by enforcing our Nation’s environmental laws in state and federal court. Our experienced litigators win precedent-setting cases that result in meaningful, transformative change. We hold polluters accountable by requiring corporations to clean up their act and comply with our Nation’s environmental laws.
Law Clerks are welcome to work in-person in either Public Justice’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., or remotely, subject to some limitations. All law clerks may assist attorneys in Public Justice’s D.C. office, as well as remote attorneys throughout the country.
Public Justice’s law clerks research and develop new cases in conjunction with our attorneys, law fellows, and cooperating counsel. They also assist attorneys in ongoing litigation. Our law clerks are involved in legal research and writing, case review, and brainstorming on theories and approaches designed to ensure that justice is achieved.
How to Apply
We encourage students to seek and use outside sources of funding or stipends, and we will help students secure that funding. Where necessary, Public Justice will provide supplemental funding equivalent to the minimum wage. Applicants must have completed their second year of law school by Summer 2027. We do not accept applications from first-year students.
Please submit your application to [email protected] no later than August 21, 2026. Reference the project for which you are applying in your subject line, and specify in your cover letter whether you are applying to work in the Washington, D.C., office or remotely. If you seek to work remotely, please state whether you anticipate being able to secure funding and from what state you anticipate working. You must submit multiple applications in order to apply for more than one position.
Applications should consist of two electronic files: (1) your cover letter, resume, transcript, and contact information for two references in a single .pdf file; and (2) a writing sample in another .pdf file. In addition, Public Justice considers applications via the Equal Justice Works Career Fair; applicants participating in that program should follow those applicable deadlines and submission procedures and need not also submit an application to the “lawfellow” email address.
For more information on Public Justice, please visit our website at www.publicjustice.net.
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