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2021 Summer Legal Internships

Employer
Nat'l Employment Law Project (NELP)
Location
Washington D.C.
Closing date
Dec 2, 2020

View more

Focus Areas
Civil Rights / Advocacy, Employment
Job Function
Advocacy / Lobbying
Position Type
Intern
Degree Level
Some college

The National Employment Law Project (NELP) seeks law students for our 2021 summer legal internship program in New York City and Washington DC.

About NELP:

The National Employment Law Project is a non‐profit research and advocacy organization that fights for policies to create good jobs, expand access to work, and strengthen protections and support for workers in low wage industries and the unemployed with a focus on uplifting Black and Latinx workers. We collaborate with national, state and local allies—including worker centers, community groups, immigrant advocacy organizations, unions, faith-based organizations, policy makers and think tanks—to create good jobs and enforce hard-won worker rights.  NELP is one of the country’s leading workers’ rights organizations, developing innovative policy models, conducting research, educating the public and other advocates, supporting worker organizing, and engaging in strategic communications. All of NELP’s work is built upon a strong commitment to eliminating structural racism. To learn more about us, please visit our website at www.nelp.org.

The Internship:

With a staff of lawyers, researchers, and policy experts, NELP works in close partnership with lawyers, grassroots organizing groups, and reformers to test new policy models in the states and cities and translate them to the federal level, and to enforce long-fought legal rights and protections, in order to respond to the key problems of the U.S. labor market in the twenty‐first century. Our work includes:

  • Developing new strategies to improve and ensure enforcement of basic workplace rights in order to combat the growing number of immigrant workers who are not paid the minimum wage or overtime, who endure unsafe workplaces, and who face retaliation when trying to organize;
  • Researching and developing policies to address the rise of outsourcing, the “gig economy,” and contingent work structures (“the fissured economy”) to ensure fair wages and job quality;
  • Developing policies and providing campaign support to raise labor standards at the federal, state, and local levels, with a particular focus on supporting ongoing worker campaigns for $15 an hour and the right to unionize; fighting back against rollbacks at the federal level; and eliminating loopholes and waiver of rights that exclude immigrants, people of color, and contingent and temporary workers from core minimum wage protections.
  • This past summer our interns worked assisting with NELP’s Covid-19 response, including research on issues of the formerly incarcerated and access to unemployment and the ongoing health and safety crisis in the workplace.

Summer legal interns will assist NELP attorneys in all aspects of this work, including:

  • Providing legal, policy, and strategic assistance for campaigns, including drafting legislation, legal research and analyses, and policy briefs;
  • Strategic participation in litigation related to wage and hour and other labor standards issues, including drafting amicus briefs and preparing legal research memos;
  • Drafting reports, op-eds, and community educational materials and engaging in strategic communications.

To Apply:

Interested students should Submit cover letter, resume, and writing sample (if possible, in one PDF document) via http://bit.ly/WorkWithNelp, choosing “Summer Legal Internship” from the “Position” drop-down menu under “Application Information.” Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, but students are encouraged to apply as early as possible.

NELP requires internship candidates to seek funding from their school or other programs and will work with you to secure supplemental funding if needed. Students who are unable to secure funding through their law schools or other programs should contact NELP’s Cathy Ruckelshaus, cruckelshaus@nelp.org for further information. NELP does not permit unpaid internships. NELP encourages students to apply to the Peggy Browning Fund, which offers valuable resources and summer funding to law students interested in workers’ rights.

NELP is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and an equal opportunity, fair chance, affirmative action employer, committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce.  All qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, color, creed, national origin, sex, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, military status, prior record of arrest or conviction, citizenship status, current employment status, or caregiver status.

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