LatinoJustice PRLDEF Term & Summer Legal Internships in NYC and Orlando
LatinoJustice PRLDEF is one of the foremost Latino civil rights organizations in the country, serving a pan-Latino constituency. Since 1972, we have been bringing precedent-setting impact litigation that has profoundly improved the way Latinos are treated in our society. Our current areas of focus include immigrants’ rights, voting rights, redistricting, housing, education, employment, job discrimination, the treatment of day laborers, freedom of movement, and all forms of bias that affect Latinos. Recent historic victories include Lozano v. Cityof Hazleton, enjoining a Pennsylvania town from enacting its own anti-immigrant ordinance; Doe v. Mamaroneck, stopping local township and police from discriminatorily harassing Latino day laborers; Perez-Santiago v. Volusia County, successful Section 4e voting rights case requiring Florida county to provide bilingual ballots; and Aguilar v. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement, successfully challenging ICE’s home raids practices in NY, resulting in groundbreaking settlement reforming ICE’s national home raids procedures, payment of $1 million dollars in damages and fees and providing immigration relief to plaintiffs facing removal.
LatinoJustice interns conduct fact investigations and legal research, draft sections of legal briefs and memos of law, participate in client & witness interviews and trial preparation, and accompany staff lawyers to court proceedings and legislative hearings. Law students are included in every stage of planning, developing and prosecuting our impact cases. Recent student work has included research into the First Amendment rights of day laborers, the Fourth Amendment rights of individuals involved in immigration home raids, and the Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection. Term interns are expected to work 12-15 hrs/week during the semester subject to class schedule availability.
Each summer, several 1L and 2L students from around the country join LatinoJustice for a 10-12 week full-time internship. Past summer interns have sometimes continued working with us on our cases upon returning to school, and writing law review articles on related issues they worked on. We have also sponsored several former term and summer interns for postgraduate public interest fellowships at LatinoJustice. LatinoJustice’s NYC office is located at 99 Hudson Street in the Tribecca area of downtown Manhattan, where we organize a Summer Racial Justice series with colleagues from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) and NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF). This NYC summer series provides unique networking opportunities to hear from leading civil rights practitioners in the Metropolitan NY area. Past presentations have included the future of desegregation, emerging issues in immigrants’ rights, school to prison pipeline, and building public interest careers via clerkships and fellowships.
LatinoJustice’s new Southeast Regional Office, located at 523 West Colonial Drive in Orlando, Florida opened in July 2014. The Southeast Regional Office also offers great networking opportunities with local Latino community organizations and Hispanic bar groups.
We are seeking energetic, motivated law students with a record of commitment to social justice work who have excellent legal, written, research, and communications skills. Bilingual Spanish/English is a plus but not required. We are happy to help students obtain academic course credit through school clinical externship programs and/or satisfy pro bono volunteer requirements at school or for bar admission.
To apply, please submit cover letter specifying your geographic office of interest and resume to Deputy General Counsel Jose Perez. For questions concerning LatinoJustice’s Southeast Regional Office internship positions, email Associate Counsel Martha Pardo.