Summer 2027 Legal Internships for Current Law Students

TakeRoot Justice provides legal, participatory research, and policy support to strengthen the work of grassroots and community-based groups in New York City to dismantle racial, economic and social oppression. TakeRoot employs a unique model of partnership with grassroots and community-based groups. Our partners take the lead in determining the priorities and goals for our work and advance our understanding of justice. This upends the traditional power dynamics between communities and service providers. We believe in a theory of change where short-term and individual successes help build the capacity and power of our partners, who in turn can have longer-term impact on policies, laws and systems that affect their communities. Our work is done in connection with organizing, building power and leadership development. Candidates with proficiency of a second language – especially Spanish, Haitian Creole, French, East Asian, or South Asian languages – are strongly preferred.

SUMMER FUNDING: TakeRoot will work with summer interns who do not receive funding from their law schools to apply for funding from outside sources and will compensate summer interns who receive little or no outside support. All interns are required to apply for at least two sources of funding, one of which can be funding from the law school they currently attend. As long as the intern meets this requirement, TakeRoot will contribute any additional funding necessary to ensure the intern is paid at least $5,950 for the internship period. Interns will not be required to apply for two sources of funding if they already have funding totals more than $5,950. Interns will be paid in the range of $0 to $7,000 from TakeRoot based on budgetary considerations.

HYBRID WORKPLACE

As TakeRoot is a hybrid remote workplace and much of our staff work remotely, it is likely that the majority of this summer’s internship programing will take place remotely as well. However, interns will have the option to work from TakeRoot’s office.

PRACTICE AREAS:

Capacity Building for Community Non-Profits and Worker Cooperatives: We support and strengthen worker-owned cooperatives and community-based institutions. In addition to providing public policy support, our practice area advises on a variety of transactional matters, including incorporation, tax exemption, internal governance, contracts, commercial leases, and compliance with corporate, non-profit, employment, tax, and other laws.

Consumer Justice: We support community-based organizations whose members and constituents are experiencing debt collection abuses. We represent low-income consumers on matters such as identity theft, credit reporting issues, rental arrears lawsuits, and unlawful debt collection practices. Our work often intersects with other practice areas in TakeRoot, such as Immigrants’ Rights and Tenants’ Rights.

Housing & Tenants’ Rights: We provide direct legal assistance to community groups, organizers, and their members engaged in tenant organizing. Our practice includes affirmative litigation on behalf of tenant associations, as well as individual anti-eviction litigation. We train community groups and their members on tenants’ rights issues, collaborate with tenant organizers, assist with legislative and/or regulatory advocacy, and lead housing clinics. Types of cases include HP actions for repairs, rent strikes, and 7A proceedings to strip landlords of control of their buildings.

Immigrants’ Rights: We believe in the freedom of movement and migration for all people. The immigration system is designed to exclude, surveil, and punish immigrants of color to uphold white supremacy. As community lawyers, we believe that our role is to support directly impacted immigrant communities of color who are leading movements to change this racist, imperialist, violent system. Our Immigrants’ Rights team partners with community-based organizations rooted in such communities to support their work to build power by:

• Assisting their members in obtaining and maintaining immigration status through staffing community-based legal clinics, providing screenings and consultations, as well as direct representation;
• Offering popular education workshops and Know Your Rights trainings to provide essential and up-to-date information on changing immigration policies;
• Providing rapid response and support for individual members targeted by ICE;
• Working in coalition with local and national immigrants’ rights groups;
• Providing technical support for partners’ campaigns for legislative and policy changes; and,
• Challenging harsh immigration laws and enforcement practices.

In addition, we believe that the struggle for immigrant justice is deeply connected with the struggle for all working-class people. Thus, we provide immigration support to community partners of TakeRoot’s other practice areas and support the broader immigrants’ rights movement in New York City where we can.

Workers’ Rights: We partner with community-based worker centers in New York City to provide legal services to their members including domestic workers and home health aides, construction workers, restaurant and food service workers, retail workers, cleaners, and other low-wage workers. Our legal work includes federal and New York state court litigation, administrative agency filings, and pre-litigation negotiations of minimum wage and overtime violations, tip theft, retaliation, discrimination, sexual harassment, sick leave, and labor trafficking claims. We also aim to support the organizing campaigns of our partner organizations and provide Know-Your-Rights trainings to their members.