Internship Program
Why work with Movement Law Lab?
You are the next generation of movement lawyers, educators, and organizers. Our team at Movement Law Lab wants to work with eager students like you who are interested in protecting, defending, and emboldening movements in the fight for abolition, dignified work, immigrant rights, Black liberation, and more.
Our Program Areas
We are looking for interns who can support our diverse activities, including the kinds of work done under our Movement Partnerships and our Global Programs:
Our Movement Partnerships programs support social movements by building and sustaining legal capacity. We commit to long-term strategic partnerships that aim to bring about transformative change for working-class communities. Since 2019 we have been in a partnership with Right to the City Alliance’s Homes for All Campaign and most recently implemented the Level Up Housing Justice Fellowship Program — an 8-month fellowship for lawyers and organizers advancing housing justice in low-income communities in the Southern United States.
Our Global Programs seek to expand the capacity of lawyers across borders to protect and bolster social justice movements globally. Much of this work takes place through MLL’s Global Network of Movement Lawyers (GNML) where we host and curate research, strategy exchange, advocacy, and co-learning spaces for lawyers to respond to emerging crises facing movements and communities. In 2022, we held our first Deep Dive series on Land and housing rights. This four-session series invited participants to exchange tactics with each other, learn from case studies, and problem-solve together; we held a second Deep Dive series on the Right to Resist in early 2023. Our global work has also recently included advocating for the release of a wrongfully imprisoned environmental lawyer and GNML member in Vietnam and supporting collective filings to the UN in support of the people of Gaza.
What You’ll Get from Working With Us
An understanding of what movement lawyering can be in today’s landscape, including working on projects across our movement Partnerships, Global, and Training departments. You will gain a better understanding of movement lawyering through our programming or as you relate to others in your program team.
Structured check-ins with supervisors and MLL team members that provide learning and feedback opportunities.
Access to other legal and non-legal comrades who are similarly situated and like-minded!
A minimum of $6,000 in pay, as explained and defined below.
Program Dates
The 10-week internship will begin on Monday 27 May 2024 and end on Friday 2 August 2024. Interns will be expected to work between 35-40 hours a week with occasional weekend and evening hours.
Application Timeline and Deadlines
The application process is open for all students on 8 November 2023. The applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. However, 2Ls who submit their applications by 8 December 2023 will receive priority. Similarly, 1Ls who submit their applications by 29 January 2024 will receive priority.
The application will prompt you to upload the following documents. Please upload them as a single PDF, named “[Your last name], [Your first name] Application”.
Cover Letter
Résumé
A short writing sample
A list of references
Your cover letter should speak to why you are interested in working with us and why think you are a good fit for this internship. We highly encourage applicants to share any technical skills on their résumé, which may include but are not limited to, their knowledge of Slack, Zoom, and project-management tools.
After we receive your application materials, we will let you know if you are selected for an interview. All interviews will be conducted via videoconference.
Interviews for applicants will be held in January and February 2024. Students will be informed by 1 April 2024 if they are selected.
Funding
Movement Law Lab is committed to each U.S.-based intern receiving at least $6,000 for their ten weeks of work with us, from any source. To receive payment from MLL, we require each intern to make diligent efforts to secure summer funding from their law schools or other outside funding streams. If you are not able to secure outside funding, or the outside funding source provides less than $6,000 for the full ten weeks of work, we will make up the difference, up to $6,000.
Sometimes, certain student-interns obtain outside funding of more than $6,000. MLL will not pay all other interns to the same level as the intern who may be receiving more than $6,000 from some outside source.
For summer interns based outside the U.S., we will pay a stipend comparable to what law students in that country would receive for ten weeks of work. Please contact us if you have more questions about this relative to the country where you live.
In the past, for those who were receiving payment directly from MLL, we hired them as hourly employees and they were paid via regular bi-weekly paychecks, with the relevant taxes automatically withheld. We may do the same this year or may provide the funding in one or more lump sum payments through the ten-week internship. We cannot anticipate, nor compensate for, what any given student-intern’s tax burden might be, so our $6,000 commitment described above must be understood as gross (before taxes), not net (after taxes). If you are accepted as an intern with us, we will be as clear as possible, as early as possible, about the payment methodology we will use during the summer of 2024. Selected applicants will receive an email with more information related to onboarding and funding next steps.
Questions?
Please share your questions by emailing internships@movementlawlab.org.
MLL is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. People of color, women, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, and individuals with past involvement in the justice system are strongly encouraged to apply.
