2014 Summer Legal Internship Opportunities at the National Employment Law Project
The National Employment Law Project (NELP) is a non‐profit research and advocacy organization that partners with national, state and local allies – including community groups, immigrant advocacy organizations, worker centers, unions, policy makers and think tanks – to develop and promote policies and programs that create good jobs and enforce hard-won worker rights.
NLP is currently seeking applications from interested law students for their 2014 summer legal internship program. With a staff of lawyers, social scientists, and policy experts, their approach is to work in close partnership with grassroots organizing groups and reformers to test new models in the states and then translate them to the federal level, in order to respond to the key problems of the U.S. labor market in the twenty‐first century. The work includes:
- Developing new strategies to improve enforcement of basic workplace rights in order to combat the growing number of low‐wage and immigrant workers who are not paid the minimum wage or overtime, endure unsafe workplaces, and face retaliation when trying to organize;
- Developing policies and providing campaign support to raise minimum wage and labor standards at the federal, state, and local levels, with a particular focus on eliminating loopholes that exclude immigrants, people of color, and contingent and temporary workers from these protections;
- Working with policymakers and community coalitions to make economic development accountable to community needs and create living wage jobs for local residents.
Summer legal interns will assist NELP attorneys in all aspects of their work. Interns will perform legal research and writing in support of policy advocacy, litigation and community education, and will assist in drafting manuals, articles and policy briefs for publication. Interns may also work with NELP’s National Wage and Hour Clearinghouse, a growing movement of unions, community groups, worker centers, legal services, plaintiff’s attorneys and public agencies working to make headway against wage theft and the erosion of the minimum wage floor and right to overtime pay
Students interested in a position in the NYC or Oakland office should submit an application. See Symplicity for specific application instructions.
Students must come with their own funding for the summer for the NYC and Oakland positions.
Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis, but students are encouraged to apply as early as possible.
NELP will also be hiring one summer legal intern for their Seattle office through the Peggy Browning Fund Summer Fellow Program, which provides a total ten‐week stipend of $4,500. Eligible students interested in applying for a NELP internship through the Peggy Browning Fund, which will begin accepting applications in November 2014, should read the Application Requirements available on the Peggy Browning Fund website and then submit an application package.