Summer Law Intern 2026
WHO WE ARE
Movement Law Lab brings the power of lawyers to social justice movements. We transform the legal sector, training lawyers and legal organizations to go beyond winning cases to building collective power. We build legal infrastructure for grassroots-led progressive movements. We reimagine the law, cultivating new ways to democratize, decolonize, and deploy the law. Together with people’s movements, we organize lawyers into a force for human dignity, multiracial democracy, and ecological harmony.
We’re looking for the next generation of movement lawyers, educators, and organizers. Our team at Movement Law Lab wants to work with eager students who are interested in defending and emboldening movements in the fight for criminal-punishment-system abolition, dignified work, immigrant rights, housing justice, and Black liberation.
We are looking for rising 3L summer interns who can support our diverse activities, including the kinds of work done under our Training and Praxis, Movement Partnership, and our Global Programs.
OUR PROGRAM AREAS
Our Training program is a hub for organizations, movements, and individuals wanting to purposefully build power at all stages of the movement-lawyering journey. In the last three years, we have trained hundreds of lawyers, law students, and legally savvy movement leaders. Our 2022 Politics and Purpose workshop introduced more than 500 law students movement lawyering. By the end of this year, we will have trained several hundred through our Negotiating with Power course, building movement-specific negotiating skills.
Our Movement Partnerships team builds and sustains legal capacity and strategy inside social movements. We commit to long-term strategic partnerships that aim to bring about transformative change for working-class communities. For example, we partnered with Right to the City Alliance to create 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 summer interns have often helped us do in-depth legal research and have participated in dynamic collaborations with our movement partners.
Our Global Programs team expands 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 recent years, we organized Deep Dive series on land and housing rights and on the right to resist, both from an internationalist perspective. Our global work has also recently included advocating for the release of a wrongfully imprisoned environmental lawyer and GNML member Dang Dinh Bach in Vietnam as well as supporting collective filings to the UN in support of the people of Gaza. Our summer interns — from the U.S. and other countries — have engaged in an astonishing breadth and depth of work in support of all of these sorts of international legal efforts.
WORKING WITH US
At MLL, you will get 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.
Receive structured check-ins with supervisors and MLL team members that provide learning and mentorship.
Access to a network of other legal and non-legal comrades who are similarly situated and like-minded!
For interns who do not receive external funding (such as a public-interest grant for summer work from their law school), we will pay at least $18 per hour. Payment details will be finalized closer to the internship start date.
PROGRAM DATES
APPLICATION TIMELINE
The 10-week internship will begin on Tuesday 26 May 2026, and end on Friday 31 July 2026. Interns will be expected to work between 35-40 hours a week with occasional weekend and evening hours.
The application process is open to rising 3Ls. The applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. The priority deadline is October 15, 2025. The application process may close early if the right candidates are selected, so applying sooner is better.
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 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, you will be notified if you are selected for an interview. All interviews will be conducted via videoconference.
Interviews for applicants will be held in late October or early November. Students will be informed soon after the interviews if they’ve been selected.
FUNDING
Movement Law Lab is committed to each U.S.-based intern receiving a living wage for their ten weeks of work with us, from any source. To receive payment from MLL, we require each intern first to make diligent efforts to secure summer funding from their law schools or other outside funding streams. 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.
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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.
