Summer Law Student Internship
About EJI
EJI is a nonprofit law office and human rights organization that provides legal assistance to condemned prisoners, children in the criminal justice system, people wrongly convicted or sentenced, and the poor and vulnerable facing imprisonment. We advocate for more hopeful solutions to the violence, powerlessness, and despair that plague many marginalized communities.
About the Position
EJI has launched an initiative on race and poverty that seeks meaningful solutions to long-standing problems. Specifically, we aim to document and contextualize issues surrounding race and poverty in America by examining the legal history of racial subordination, exclusion, and segregation. We will be considering particular remedies designed to address contemporary and historic injuries that many people of color have experienced in the rural South. We are excited about the possibility of giving voice to widespread structural barriers and systems that are limiting opportunities and progress to many rural poor.
In addition, we are challenging excessive and abusive punishments imposed on children across the United States, working on large reform projects relating to racial injustice and economic inequality, and we maintain a large docket of death penalty cases, wrongful conviction cases, and civil rights cases. We are committed to challenging violence against incarcerated individuals, abuse of power by correctional officers, unsafe prison conditions, mistreatment of mentally ill inmates, and illegal detention of the poor. We work with and provide training to lawyers, law students, community leaders, and low-income communities to improve access to justice. We issue research reports and materials aimed at educating the public and increasing awareness of problems related to criminal justice, race, and poverty.
Law student interns work closely with EJI attorneys and engage in a variety of work experiences. Students conduct legal research and draft memoranda, pleadings, and briefs for litigation efforts in both state and federal court. The issues primarily involve substantive criminal law, criminal procedure, death penalty law, constitutional law, civil rights law, habeas corpus law, and appellate practice and procedure. Students also work directly with clients, conduct investigations on cases, monitor court proceedings, and assist in the development of publications, reports, and educational resources for lawyers, policymakers, and the public.
The legal clerkship requires a 10-week commitment to work at EJI in Montgomery, Alabama. It is an unfunded internship.
EJI is not accepting internship applications at this time and we will not host an internship program in the summer of 2024. We will update this posting if any internship programs become available. If you have any questions, please contact Mickey Hubbard at [email protected].