Public Interest

One of the toughest parts of a public interest job search is managing the timeline. The lack of a unified, consistent hiring timeline by public interest employers and the fact that every individual’s situation differs can complicate the search process. Consider the following tips about communicating with employers as you navigate interviews and offers.

Follow these key tips for PSVF Organization-Based Fellowship applications.

Review some of the most common 1L job search questions in our Job Search FAQs, including how to navigate interviews, offers, and other communication with employers. 

Interested in learning more about public international law work? The following resources can help you begin your exploration.

OPIA staff discuss factors to consider when choosing a 2L summer job.

A few plaintiffs’ firms and several litigation boutiques participate in EIP, but most plaintiffs’ firms and private public interest law firms (PPILFs) do not participate in campus recruiting programs like EIP or V-PIIP. Learn more about how the hiring processes differ with these types of firms.

Learn about entry-level and post-clerkship job search topics like how to get started, what hiring mechanisms different types of employers use, and how to find job opportunities.

Fatma and Bryn have long wanted to have children, and, after administrators at a Fort Worth-based USCCB affiliate invited Fatma to visit and learn about the affiliate’s work with unaccompanied refugee children, decided they wanted to become foster parents for a refugee child and asked to start the licensing process. However, when in their first interview they revealed that they were a married same-sex couple, the affiliate’s Director of International Foster Care informed them that they would not be permitted to apply to be foster parents because their family structure did not “mirror the Holy Family.”

"Brooklyn is where I get to perform my super-power of being an immigration attorney!"

A discussion of why students should become public interest lawyers.

Felicity Conrad and Kristen Sonday are dedicated to closing the justice gap. Their company, Paladin, uses technology to help lawyers and law school students identify legal aid cases.

Graduating students and their loved ones celebrated with the OPIA staff at OPIA's graduation reception on Thursday, May 25. Congratulations!!

A group of movement lawyering practitioners & educators, in collaboration with Law for Black Lives, CUNY-CLEAR, the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG-NIP), and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), invites you to apply for the first-ever online Movement Lawyering Bootcamp with a series of six interactive online education and discussion sessions. Apply by 11:549 pm on Monday, May 15.

With the help of funding from LIPP, Erika Rickard has worked tirelessly to improve access to justice.

Read the stories of some exceptional pro bono advocates.

Meet the seventeen young community leaders and activists bringing communities together throughout Philadelphia.

Top-notch law professors have launched a website to monitor the legality of President Trump's policies.

This Fund is intended to provide support for HLS students from any HLS degree program engaged in term time or summer public interest research or work pertaining to Taiwan, the People's Republic of China or Hong Kong.

Sign-up for one-on-one advising appointments with Matthew Colangelo, Civil Rights Advocate and Senior Government Official to discuss roles in non-profits and government, and what the future of non-profit and government lawyering may look like in the current political climate.