Intern, Appellate Project (Summer)

Since 1932, Legal Aid has provided civil legal assistance to clients in individual cases and engaged in systemic reform. Currently, we provide individual representation in consumer law, domestic violence/family law, housing, public benefits, and appellate matters. We also work on immigration matters and help individuals with the collateral consequences of their involvement with the criminal justice system. From the experiences of our clients, we identify opportunities for law reform, public policy advocacy, and systemic impact and appellate litigation.

Legal Aid believes that meaningful pursuit of our anti-poverty mission requires an unwavering commitment to racial justice and equity. We aspire both to reflect the rich racial diversity of the communities we serve and to value, respect, and empower our staff and clients to be effective agents of change. For more information about Legal Aid please visit our website, www.LegalAidDC.org.

Legal Aid’s nationally recognized Barbara McDowell Appellate Advocacy Project is named after its first Director, an acclaimed appellate and U.S. Supreme Court advocate. The Project litigates precedent-setting appeals on behalf of Legal Aid clients and files “friend of the court” briefs in cases involving matters of importance to people living in poverty. Beyond litigation, the Project provides appellate instruction, consultation, and advice to the larger D.C. legal services community. Although most of the Project’s work involves cases before the D.C. Court of Appeals, the Project also participates in administrative appeals and in cases before the D.C. Superior Court and the federal courts.  

Prior interns have drafted large sections of briefs, researched novel legal questions, attended Legal Aid oral argument at the D.C. Court of Appeals, met with federal and District judges and appellate practitioners from diverse practice areas, and attended a legal writing training, among other professional enrichment opportunities.

This is a ten-week, full-time internship for Summer 2026. Interns work out of Legal Aid’s 1331 H St. NW office at least three days per week.
Interns may not have a choice as to which days they are required to work in the office.

Responsibilities:

Conducting legal research using Lexis to answer quick questions or prepare longer memos
Drafting portions of filings, including briefs and motions, and client correspondence
Cite-checking, Bluebooking, proofreading, and other tasks that require careful attention to detail
Participating in oral argument preparation, including moots
Reviewing publicly available dockets to identify cases in which Legal Aid should become involved, including assessing lengthy records and issue-spotting
Providing administrative support to the project

Scholarship Funding:

Legal Aid DC can provide scholarship funding to ensure that summer law students receive no less than $6,283 per summer, including scholarships from the Lee Horton Memorial Scholarship for Aspiring Public Interest Lawyers.

Summer law students are required to apply for outside funding to fund their internships in order to receive supplemental scholarship funding. We will provide a scholarship of up to $6,283 to summer law school interns when:

They attend a school that does not provide funding OR they are not approved for at least $6,283 of funding from their schools
AND

They do not get funding from any other outside sources that gets them to total funding of $6,283 for the summer

Example: if a student receives $5,000 of outside funding, Legal Aid will pay them $1,283 in scholarship funding.

Students may waive funding if they are prohibited from receiving renumeration by their law school.