Career Development Office Blog

Just The Beginning Foundation and Judicial Resources Committee Joint Internship Diversity Project

By Career Development Office on November 14th, 2011

The Judicial Resources Committee and the Just The Beginning Foundation are pleased to announce that the Joint Internship Diversity Project is entering its second year.  The Project’s ultimate goal is to share the judicial internship experience with minority, underrepresented, or economically disadvantaged law students.  The Project is national in scope and will place 50 students as judicial interns in federal judges’ chambers across the country. 

Interns will be given substantive legal assignments, likely involving motions to dismiss, motions for summary judgment, magistrate judge reports, and habeas corpus petitions through which the intern will be exposed to a variety of procedural and substantive issues.  Interns will have the opportunity to draft bench memoranda, judicial orders, and opinions. 

The application process will proceed as follows.  Following the applicant’s electronic submission of application materials, there will be a two-step review process.  Should an applicant pass the initial review, the applicant will then be interviewed, either in-person or via telephone.  Selected applicants will then be referred to one of the Program’s Participating Judges for a second interview. 

Applicants should possess strong research and writing skills and be prepared to handle the rigors of working in a federal court.  Applicants commit to a minimum internship period of six, full-time weeks and attend mandatory training workshops prior to the beginning of the internship, either in-person or via videoconference. 

All application materials must be e-mailed by 5 P.M. Monday, January 9, 2012.  Though second-year law students e-mail their materials at any time, we ask that first-year law students not submit their application materials before December 1, 2011. 

Please address your application packet to:

Students must submit all of the following materials:

1. cover letter explaining your interest in participating in the Judicial Resources Committee and the Just The Beginning Foundation’s Joint Internship Diversity Project;
2. resume;
3. unofficial law school transcript (if first semester law school grades are incomplete, please send an undergraduate transcript, and supplement with law school grades as they become available);
4. writing sample (no more than 10 pages in length);
5. list of three references; and
6. completed geographical preference form, with locational rankings.  [Download this form from the Just The Beginning Foundation website.]