Fall 2025 Legal Externs

Who We Are

Public Justice is a nonprofit legal advocacy organization that takes on the biggest systemic threats to justice of our time—abusive corporate power and predatory practices, the assault on civil rights, and the destruction of the Earth’s sustainability. It connects high impact litigation with strategic communications and the strength of our partnerships to fight these abusive and discriminatory systems and win social and economic justice.

What We Are Looking For

Public Justice seeks to hire four legal externs for the Fall 2025 semester, one in each of our four project areas. While each extern will focus on a single project area, they may work in other project areas as need and opportunity arise. Our four project areas are:

• The Access to Justice Project seeks to make the civil court system a fair, equitable, and effective tool for those with less power to win just outcomes. Primarily through high-impact litigation, we dismantle the procedural and structural barriers between ordinary people and the civil justice system, such as forced arbitration, limits on collective actions, overly strict standing requirements, and unwarranted court secrecy.
• The Debtors’ Prison Project fights to end the criminalization of poverty and shrink the carceral system. Working with allies and impacted communities, we use litigation, advocacy, and education to ensure no one is jailed simply because they can’t pay and to stop governments and for-profit corporations from treating people impacted by the system as a revenue source.
• The Students’ Civil Rights Project combines high-impact litigation with other advocacy tools to combat harassment and other forms of discrimination in schools. We strive to create systemic change so all students can learn and thrive, and to secure justice for students who are denied educational opportunities based on their race, national origin, ethnicity, or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.
• The Environmental Enforcement Project goes to court every day to fight climate change, secure environmental justice, and make polluters pay. We utilize the most powerful tools available to citizens by enforcing our Nation’s environmental laws in state and federal court. Our experienced litigators win precedent-setting cases that result in meaningful, transformative change. We hold polluters accountable by requiring corporations to clean up their act and comply with our Nation’s environmental laws.

The externs are welcome to work in-person in Public Justice’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., subject to pandemic conditions and vaccination status, or the externs may work remotely. All externs may assistattorneys in Public Justice’s Washington, D.C., office, as well as remote attorneys throughout the country.

Public Justice’s law externs research and develop new cases in conjunction with our attorneys, law fellows, and cooperating counsel. They also assist attorneys in ongoing litigation. Our law externs are involved in legal research and writing, case review, and brainstorming on theories and approaches designed to ensure that justice is achieved.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access

Public Justice is an equal-opportunity employer and values a diverse workplace. We are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equitable employment opportunities are available to all applicants. We encourage applications from all qualified individuals without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, age, national origin, citizenship or immigration status, disability, veteran status, record of arrest or conviction, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. People of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender and gender-diverse people, women, people with abilities in multiple languages, immigrants, people living with disabilities, veterans, and formerly incarcerated individuals are strongly encouraged to apply. Please visit this link to read our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access policy statement: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Access.

Public Justice is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you require reasonable accommodations during any part of the hiring process, please emailkbaker@publicjustice.net

How to Apply

These positions are open to those who can secure academic credit for their work with Public Justice. We will help students secure academic credit from their schools. Applicants must be second- or third-year law students at the time of the externship, and 3Ls are preferred. We do not accept applications from first-year or undergraduate students.

1. Please submit your application to lawfellow@publicjustice.net no later than July 17, 2025,

Reference the project for which you are applying in your subject line, and specify in your cover letter whether you are applying to work in the Washington, D.C., office or remotely. You must submit multiple applications to apply to more than one project. Applications should consist of two electronic files: (1) your cover letter, resume, transcript, and contact information for two references in a single .pdf file; and (2) a writing sample in another .pdf file.

For more information on Public Justice, please visit our website at www.publicjustice.net.