Fellowships and Legal Honors Programs

by Hampton Jackson
LCD Intern

Have you considered applying for a public interest fellowship? Are you planning to apply for a government job through one of the Federal Honors Programs? Fellowships and Federal Honors Programs offer excellent legal opportunities for 3L students and recent graduates. The trick, however, is applying early. Most fellowships require applications to be submitted 9 to 12 months in advance of placement. Similarly, all Federal Honors Programs have application deadlines months in advance, and only hire entry-level attorneys from these programs.

For any student considering applying for a public interest fellowship or a government job through the various Federal Honors Programs, this post is for YOU. Below you will find helpful information regarding application tips for fellowships, application deadlines, and resources for finding government jobs.

Also, Law Career Development will be hosting the following agencies on campus this fall.

• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Thursday, August 20, Noon to 1 pm in room 3201. 
• U.S. Department of Justice, Friday, August 21, Noon to 1 pm in room 3203.
• Navy, Marine, and Air Force JAG, Wednesday, September 30. 

 *Dates and times are tentative. Please check the hallway posters for updates.

Legal Diversity Initiatives

by Jared Solovay
Director of Employer Relations and Administrative Director of the Honors Lawyering Program
Law Career Services

A longstanding issue of great concern in the legal profession has been the lack of diversity with respect to women, persons with disabilities, the LGBT community, and racial and ethnic minorities.¹

The result has been disproportionately lower representation for certain groups in the profession, particularly in leadership positions.

For example, according to a recent Law Review article analyzing this topic, “12.6% of the U.S. population was African American, 16.3% was Hispanic American, and 4.8% was Asian American” in 2010, yet these groups made up only “4.3%, 3.4%, and 3.4% respectively” of the legal profession that year.

As the ABA has noted, “Without a diverse bench and bar, the rule of law is weakened as the people see and come to distrust their exclusion from the mechanisms of justice. “ In addition, as some diverse attorneys have explained, this underrepresention can lead to a lack of adequate mentorship and the perceptions of hiring biases within the profession.

Rising 3Ls: The Time Has Come To Prepare Your Fellowship Applications!

By Leeor Neta
Director of Public Interest Programs

Every aspiring public interest lawyer should consider applying for a postgraduate public interest fellowship. The summer before one’s last year of school is the time to apply!

While there are many kinds of public interest fellowships, project-based fellowships are some of the most attractive because they account for most of the fellowship opportunities—nearly 100 opportunities in the last year alone. Indeed, Golden Gate Law graduates have received fellowships every year for the last three years.

Project-based fellowship applications are time-consuming and complicated. Each applicant must pitch an original idea for a project, and recruit an existing organization to supervise, mentor, and train the applicant. Typically, the process requires months of preparation. At This article address two such fellowships: the Equal Justice Works Fellowship and the Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship.

The Equal Justice Works Fellowship is the largest postgraduate legal fellowship program in the United States, and a leading innovator in this area. Last year, Equal Justice Works hosted 43 fellows from 30 different schools. The Fellowship is two years in duration.

The Equal Justice Works Fellowship application is extensive and very detailed. Applicants are required to draft a detailed statement of unmet need, project goals, timelines, and a personal statement. Applicants are also required to submit a long-form resume, two letters of recommendation, and a letter from the sponsoring agency. The applicant’s school matters little and grades are not considered at all.

The application is usually posted online in June. The deadline to submit the application occurs in mid-September. The office for Equal Justice Works West—located in Oakland—reviews all applications from schools in California. Equal Justice Works selects the applications it wishes to approve and “pitches” them to the companies and firms that fund the Equal Justice Works Fellowship. The funders have substantial decision-making power. Interviews typically takes place from the end of the fall through the spring.

In recent years, Equal Justice Works has supported applications in the following areas: immigration, youth (particularly special education), community development, and domestic violence.

If you’re interested in applying for an Equal Justice Works Fellowship, here are some important recommendations:

1. Applicants should choose a project to which they have a personal connection or one that is in clearly in line with the applicant’s background.
2. Because each host receives only one fellow, applicants should ask the host if it is sponsoring other applicants.
3. Because many successful projects have catchy titles, applicants should endeavor to draft such titles for their projects, e.g., the Briefcase Clinic.
4. Applicants should thoroughly research their project ideas and provide verifiable statistics supporting their statements of need.
5. Applicants should offer specific six-month milestones in the description of their projects’ goals.
6. Applicants should demonstrate how their project will offer pro bono opportunities for partner agencies.

For more tips on developing an Equal Justice Works Fellowship, click here.

The Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship supports individuals—not just lawyers or law students—in the creation of projects that reform criminal justice policy. SJA Fellowships are 18 months in duration, and can begin in either April or September.

There are two Advocacy Fellowship tracks. Advocacy Track I is designed for new and emerging leaders. Advocacy Track II is aimed at more experienced individuals with a demonstrated record of achievement and expertise in their fields. Applicants in Track I do not compete with applicants in Track II. Each year, there are 15-20 Track I Fellowships.

Like the Equal Justice Works Fellowship, the Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship application is extensive. Applicants are required to draft a detailed proposal—including project explanation, project goals, project strategies, and a timeline. Applicants are also required to submit a long-form resume, two letters of recommendation, and a letter from the sponsoring agency. Projects must also have an advisory board. The advisory board must be comprised of a minimum of three individuals who can lend strategic guidance and substantive expertise to the project.

The application is posted online in August. The deadline to submit the application occurs in early November. A reading committee consisting of Open Society Institute staff and outside experts in the field review the proposals and nominate finalists. Finalists are invited to interview with a selection committee that also consists of Open Society Institute staff and outside experts in the field.

Soros Justice Advocacy Projects must align with the Open Society Institute’s Criminal Justice Fund priorities. While these are in flux for the coming year, the Institute has tended to fund projects that:

• Attack the excessive and economically destructive costs of incarceration
• Eliminate harsh and unjust sentencing practices
• Reform parole and probation policies and practices
• Foster new approaches to drug policy
• Combat the criminalization of marginalized populations, e.g. people with mental illness, homeless individuals, young people, immigrants
• End punitive school disciplinary policies
• Eliminate unreasonable barriers to the reintegration of people returning from prison, as well as challenge the stigmatization of people with criminal records
• End the treatment of children as adults in prosecution and sentencing
• Abolish the death penalty
• Reform police and prosecution practices
• Improve indigent defense services and systems

Applicants may propose any number of strategies to achieve the goals set forth in their projects, including: litigation, public education, strategic communications, policy advocacy, coalition-building, grassroots organizing and mobilization, and action research. As a general rule, projects must not either wholly or substantially involve direct service delivery or individual representation.

The Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship favors projects with multiple constituencies that could be served by sectors other than the criminal justice system, e.g., youth, the disabled community, the homeless population, the LGBT community, etc. Also encouraged are applications for projects that cut across various criminal justice fields and related sectors—such as education, health, mental health, housing, and employment. The fellowship favors projects outside of metropolitan areas—though in fact, few are—and particularly favors projects based in the South and Midwest.

The quality of the Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship applicant is extremely important, perhaps more important than the project itself. The fellowship prefers applicants who have direct experience with the criminal justice system, e.g., ex-offenders, family members of offenders, or at least applicants with connections to their project issues that predate their legal education. The ideal applicant is one with a significant professional or personal connection to the project issue, and one with connections to past fellows and host organizations.

Though not required, host organizations are highly preferred. Even so, projects should clearly originate from the applicant’s background and interests, rather than from the host’s needs. Applicants choosing not to partner with a host organization must convincingly articulate how they will achieve the project goals without the infrastructure and support of an established organization.

If you’re interested in applying for a Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship, here are some important recommendations:

1. Applicants should demonstrate that they are familiar with existing similar work.
2. Applicants should model their applications on past successful applications and clearly demonstrate that their projects are evolutions in the field.
3. Applicants should assembly their advisory boards as early as possible.
4. Applicant should talk to past fellows as part of their research.
5. Projects should combine community organizing with legal strategies.
6. Projects should meaningfully integrate constituency members, i.e., not just as clients.
7. Host organizations should be fully committed to the goals of the Open Society Institute, but need not be Open Society Institute grantees.

Applicants who are uncertain whether some aspect of their proposed project fits within the parameters of the Fellowship program guidelines or whether the project is otherwise likely to be of interest to the program may submit an email inquiry before proceeding with the full online application process. The email should provide a brief—no more than 500 words—description of the project, as well as some background information on the applicant, and should be sent to sorosjusticefellowships@sorosny.org.

For more tips on developing any project-based fellowship, click here.

For a list of helpful resources about fellowships generally, click here.

Most importantly, you need to plan now if you want to pursue a postgraduate fellowship.  I am hosting a fellowships workshop on Wednesday, June 13, at noon in the LCS conference room.  I encourage all interested students to attend!

Using a Bridge Fellowship to Create Your Ideal Permanent Position

by: Jan Nussbaum and Sharon Alkire

Over the last couple of years that we’ve offered the Bridge Fellowship Program, several fellow graduates have parlayed their volunteer positions into permanent attorney positions, including Erica Corns, SF DA’s Office, Kalla Hirschbein, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Kate Carroll, U.S. Postal Service, and most recently, your classmate Sharon Alkire, who will be heading up a new special LGBT victims of domestic violence unit for the Alameda County DA’s office.

Granted that not all volunteer work becomes permanent, but Bridge Fellowships are a fantastic way to gain additional legal experience while receiving a stipend and separately looking for long-term work - no more than 20 hours/week is required of a Bridge fellow and you are free to leave at any time. When applying for other positions, potential employers love to see that you are doing some legal work and are engaged in the profession.

I know you will find Sharon’s story inspiring:

I knew I wanted to meet and make an impression on Alameda District Attorney and fellow alumna Nancy O'Malley since so many people, including me, admire her progressive, significant work, such as her efforts to stop human trafficking.

I found ways to introduce myself to Nancy, and on the fourth try, at GGU’s Judith McKelvey Women's Alumni Reunion, I mentioned to her that I was interested in doing LGBT rights law. She said she’d been thinking about a program to address LGBT domestic violence. I knew that GGU offered a Bridge Fellowship, so I stepped right up and told her I'd be very interested in getting on board. However, it turned out there wasn't a "board" to get on yet. Nancy was asking me to create the foundation of the program for her office, with the goal of increasing cultural competency. There was no way I could pass this up. I used the Bridge Fellowship to help me make this happen.

Three months into my fellowship, I am developing a county-wide program to identify and address issues unique to LGBT victims of domestic violence to improve the cultural competency of district attorneys, victims’ rights advocates and support staff who work with LGBT survivors. I am also working on initiatives to maximize outreach to a wide variety of LGBT organizations and provide systematic public education about the prevalence of same-sex and transgender domestic violence. My supervisors are working with me to turn my Bridge fellowship into a full-time paid position. Part of my work right now is to find potential grants. I couldn't have asked for a better start to my legal career!

If interested, or to learn more about Bridge Fellowships, contact Leeor Neta at lneta@ggu.edu. Bridge Fellowship applications can be found on LCSonline.

---

Sharon graduated from GGU with her J.D. degree in May, 2012 and is the proud owner of her dog Sarah.

Project-Based Public Interest Fellowships

By Leeor Neta
Assistant Director of Public Interest Programs

Every aspiring public interest lawyer should consider applying for a postgraduate public interest fellowship. The summer before one’s last year of school is the time to apply!

While there are many kinds of public interest fellowships, project-based fellowships are some of the most attractive because they account for most of the fellowship opportunities—88 opportunities in the last year alone.

Project-based fellowship applications are time-consuming and complicated. Each applicant must pitch an original idea for a project, and recruit an existing organization to supervise, mentor, and train the applicant. Typically, the process requires months of preparation. At This article address two such fellowships: the Equal Justice Works Fellowship and the Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship.

The Equal Justice Works Fellowship is the largest postgraduate legal fellowship program in the United States, and a leading innovator in this area. Last year, Equal Justice Works hosted 43 fellows from 30 different schools. The Fellowship is two years in duration.

The Equal Justice Works Fellowship application is extensive and very detailed. Applicants are required to draft a detailed statement of unmet need, project goals, timelines, and a personal statement. Applicants are also required to submit a long-form resume, two letters of recommendation, and a letter from the sponsoring agency. The applicant’s school matters little and grades are not considered at all.

The application is posted online in July. The deadline to submit the application occurs in mid-September. The office for Equal Justice Works West—located in Oakland—reviews all applications from schools in California. Equal Justice Works selects the applications it wishes to approve and “pitches” them to the companies and firms that fund the Equal Justice Works Fellowship. The funders have substantial decision-making power. Interviews typically takes place from the end of the fall through the spring.

In recent years, Equal Justice Works has supported applications in the following areas: immigration, youth (particularly special education), community development, and domestic violence.

If you’re interested in applying for an Equal Justice Works Fellowship, here are some important recommendations:

1. Applicants should choose a project to which they have a personal connection or one that is in clearly in line with the applicant’s background.
2. Because each host receives only one fellow, applicants should ask the host if it is sponsoring other applicants.
3. Because many successful projects have catchy titles, applicants should endeavor to draft such titles for their projects, e.g., the Briefcase Clinic.
4. Applicants should thoroughly research their project ideas and provide verifiable statistics supporting their statements of need.
5. Applicants should offer specific six-month milestones in the description of their projects’ goals.
6. Applicants should demonstrate how their project will offer pro bono opportunities for partner agencies.

For more tips on developing an Equal Justice Works Fellowship, click here.

The Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship supports individuals—not just lawyers or law students—in the creation of projects that reform criminal justice policy. SJA Fellowships are 18 months in duration, and can begin in either April or September.

There are two Advocacy Fellowship tracks. Advocacy Track I is designed for new and emerging leaders. Advocacy Track II is aimed at more experienced individuals with a demonstrated record of achievement and expertise in their fields. Applicants in Track I do not compete with applicants in Track II. Each year, there are 15-20 Track I Fellowships.

Like the Equal Justice Works Fellowship, the Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship application is extensive. Applicants are required to draft a detailed proposal—including project explanation, project goals, project strategies, and a timeline. Applicants are also required to submit a long-form resume, two letters of recommendation, and a letter from the sponsoring agency. Projects must also have an advisory board. The advisory board must be comprised of a minimum of three individuals who can lend strategic guidance and substantive expertise to the project.

The application is posted online in August. The deadline to submit the application occurs in early November. A reading committee consisting of Open Society Institute staff and outside experts in the field review the proposals and nominate finalists. Finalists are invited to interview with a selection committee that also consists of Open Society Institute staff and outside experts in the field.

Soros Justice Advocacy Projects must align with the Open Society Institute’s Criminal Justice Fund priorities. While these are in flux for the coming year, the Institute has tended to fund projects that:

• Attack the excessive and economically destructive costs of incarceration
• Eliminate harsh and unjust sentencing practices
• Reform parole and probation policies and practices
• Foster new approaches to drug policy
• Combat the criminalization of marginalized populations, e.g. people with mental illness, homeless individuals, young people, immigrants
• End punitive school disciplinary policies
• Eliminate unreasonable barriers to the reintegration of people returning from prison, as well as challenge the stigmatization of people with criminal records
• End the treatment of children as adults in prosecution and sentencing
• Abolish the death penalty
• Reform police and prosecution practices
• Improve indigent defense services and systems

Applicants may propose any number of strategies to achieve the goals set forth in their projects, including: litigation, public education, strategic communications, policy advocacy, coalition-building, grassroots organizing and mobilization, and action research. As a general rule, projects must not either wholly or substantially involve direct service delivery or individual representation.

The Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship favors projects with multiple constituencies that could be served by sectors other than the criminal justice system, e.g., youth, the disabled community, the homeless population, the LGBT community, etc. Also encouraged are applications for projects that cut across various criminal justice fields and related sectors—such as education, health, mental health, housing, and employment. The fellowship favors projects outside of metropolitan areas—though in fact, few are—and particularly favors projects based in the South and Midwest.

The quality of the Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship applicant is extremely important, perhaps more important than the project itself. The fellowship prefers applicants who have direct experience with the criminal justice system, e.g., ex-offenders, family members of offenders, or at least applicants with connections to their project issues that predate their legal education. The ideal applicant is one with a significant professional or personal connection to the project issue, and one with connections to past fellows and host organizations.

Though not required, host organizations are highly preferred. Even so, projects should clearly originate from the applicant’s background and interests, rather than from the host’s needs. Applicants choosing not to partner with a host organization must convincingly articulate how they will achieve the project goals without the infrastructure and support of an established organization.

If you’re interested in applying for a Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship, here are some important recommendations:

1. Applicants should demonstrate that they are familiar with existing similar work.
2. Applicants should model their applications on past successful applications and clearly demonstrate that their projects are evolutions in the field.
3. Applicants should assembly their advisory boards as early as possible.
4. Applicant should talk to past fellows as part of their research.
5. Projects should combine community organizing with legal strategies.
6. Projects should meaningfully integrate constituency members, i.e., not just as clients.
7. Host organizations should be fully committed to the goals of the Open Society Institute, but need not be Open Society Institute grantees.

Applicants who are uncertain whether some aspect of their proposed project fits within the parameters of the Fellowship program guidelines or whether the project is otherwise likely to be of interest to the program may submit an email inquiry before proceeding with the full online application process. The email should provide a brief—no more than 500 words—description of the project, as well as some background information on the applicant, and should be sent to sorosjusticefellowships@sorosny.org.

For more tips on developing any project-based fellowship, click here.

For a list of helpful resources about fellowships generally, click here.

Most importantly, you need to plan now if you want to pursue a postgraduate fellowship. Email me at lneta@ggu.edu for more information.

Dinh Honored, Awarded Fellowship

Last month, Nikki Dinh (GGU JD 2010) was honored at the offices of Asian Pacific Islander Outreach for receiving the Vietnamese American Bar Association of Northern California’s first public interest fellowship. The fellowship will support APILO, where she will provide legal services and play a key role as an advocate for the Vietnamese American community and other underserved communities in the Bay Area.

Nikki Dinh graduated from GGU with a specialization in public interest law and as a member of the Pro Bono Honor Society. Upon graduation, she was awarded the Golden Gate University Diversity Graduation Award for her efforts in promoting diversity in the legal profession.

Congratulations, Nikki!

- Leeor Neta

Postgraduate Fellowships Workshop

A postgraduate fellowship is one of the very few ways through which aspiring public interest students start their careers. Because fellowship applications have early fall deadlines and the application process is very time-consuming, the time to start exploring fellowships is right now!

POSTGRADUATE FELLOWSHIPS WORKSHOP
Thursday, March 31 | 5:15-6:15 pm | Room 3201, GGU

MEET THE PANELISTS

Ifetayo Belle
Ifetayo Belle is the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Fellow at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and works on LCCR’s Racial Justice docket. She is a member of the legal team for Williams v. City of Antioch, a federal civil rights class action suit challenging the Antioch Police Department’s harassment of African American families with Section 8 housing vouchers. Ifetayo also works on efforts to increase utilization of minority-owned businesses in government contracting. This includes representation of defendant intervenors, NAACP of San Diego and the Coalition for Economic Equity, in Associated General Contractors v. California Department of Transportation, defending the state’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise contracting program. During law school, Ifetayo interned at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for Judge Anne C. Williams and at Outten & Golden LLP, a plaintiff-side NYC employment firm where she worked in the Discrimination and Retaliation Practice Group. Ifetayo graduated from Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts.

Parisa Fatehi
Parisa Fatehi (Attorney and Equal Justice Works Fellow, sponsored by Hewlett-Packard Company and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP) joined Public Advocates in 2009 after clerking for the Hon. Vanessa D. Gilmore of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Parisa’s work, which includes coalition building, policy advocacy, and administrative and legal action, uses California’s climate change reform policies to secure affordable housing near quality jobs and public transit for low-income communities. Parisa is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where she served as student body president and received her B.A. in Plan II, J.D., and Masters in Public Affairs. Prior to graduate school, Parisa lived in Washington, D.C., where she worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on voluntary programs designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In law school, she served low-income clients in the Transnational Workers’ Rights Clinic and the Immigration Clinic, interned at the Texas Civil Rights Project and the National Employment Law Project, and was president of UT Law’s American Constitution Society. Parisa served on two municipal commissions, the City of Austin’s Commission on Immigrant Affairs and the Day Labor Community Advisory Committee.

Fabián Rentería
Fabián Rentería is the Equal Justice Society’s Judge Constance Baker Motley Civil Rights Fellow. Fabián is an immigrant from México and the first person in his family to attend college and law school. He graduated from UCLA School of Law with specializations in Public Interest Law & Policy and Critical Race Studies. During law school, Fabián was the Editor-in-Chief of the Chicana/o-Latina/o Law Review and he received numerous academic and public interest accolades in law school. Fabián is a former Judicial Extern for the Hon. Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; Law Clerk for Public Advocates, Inc.; and Research Assistant to UCLA School of Law Professor Gerald P. López. After law school, he worked a county-wide criminal justice committee and For People of Color, Inc. as their Director of Administration and Finance. Fabián attended UCLA and received his B.A.s in History and Chicana/o Studies with minors in Political Science and Education Studies. Fabián graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and completed the College Honors Program.

Report From The Nation's LargestPublic Interest Conference (Part 1 of 2)

photo by Steven Purcell

by Leeor Neta
Assistant Director for Public Interest Programs

The annual NALP / PSLawNet Mini-Conference and Equal Justice Works Conference, which took place last week in the nation’s capital, are two of the most important opportunities for public interest advisors at the nation’s law schools—like myself—to attend substantive and skills-based programs. The following article highlights the first in a series of the programs that I attended. Keep checking the LCS Blog for more installments!

Best Advice I Know on Pursuing a Public Interest Career

On the last day of the NALP / PSLawNet Mini-Conference, I attended a panel discussion that indirectly shared some important advice on how to pursue a public interest career. I say that the advice was “indirectly shared” because the purpose of the panel was to discuss pathways to public policy and think tank careers. Two of the four panelists (Nicole Austin-Hillery, director and counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, and Alejandro T. Reyes, associate counsel for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law) are involved in some of the most prestigious impact litigation and legal policy work in the nation.

Both of the panelists agreed that lawyers who work on policy need to understand the nexus between law and enforcement. In concluding that the “best policy percolates up from the street,” Ms. Austin-Hillery explained that a policy lawyer can’t craft effective policy unless she understands her clients and understands how to get them to tell their stories. A policy lawyer needs to make brief and effective arguments under pressure. A policy lawyer also needs to know how to work with opposing forces and different interests to negotiate on her clients’ behalf. Because effective communication and negotiation skills are the key to policy work, the entire panel agreed that a lawyer wanting to work on policy needs a solid foundation in litigation.

The panel also suggested that law students interested in policy work try to work for state legislatures, researching and helping to draft proposed legislation. International work experience, moot courts, and writing opportunities are also considered important. Everyone agreed that working for the Administrative Office of the Courts and State Bar Associations were ideal — and less competitive — ways to acquire policy work experience.

The panel’s best advice pertained to all aspiring public interest lawyers. First, they advised — as I have already done for many of you — that law students identify five to ten offices that they would like to work for and try to join their advisory boards. Many of those offices might need independent legal advice and the work that one does as a board member is a great way to leverage an employment offer once a position opens up. Students should consider a two-week immersion program, some of which are extremely affordable (one of the panelists described a program in Mexico that costs less than $800!).

Finally, the entire panel agreed that the best candidates for entry-level positions demonstrate through their resumes and cover letters that they were born to pursue the job for which they’re applying. Their resumes demonstrate a seamless progression of attention and commitment to a specific area. Therefore, “the sooner you can decide what it is you want to do with your legal career, the better prepared you will be when you apply for your first job.”

The Exciting World of Postgraduate Fellowships

As I have said many times and heard often repeated at the panel on policy work, a postgraduate fellowship is one of the most important ways to launch a public interest career. That’s why — even though I am very familiar with the subject — I made it a point to attend another panel later in the week on postgraduate fellowships and to hear about the latest related developments.

Jennifer Tschirch, the fellowships senior program manager at Equal Justice Works, began by dividing fellowships into several basic categories.

The first kind of fellowship is the organization-based fellowship where students apply to and work with an organization that separately obtains the funds to support a salary for the fellow, training and a wealth of other resources. Examples include the fellowships offered by the ACLU and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. The second kind of fellowship is the law firm-based fellowship, where students are hired by a law firm and split time between that firm and a public interest organization. Examples include the fellowships offered by the law firms Fried Frank and Hunton Williams.

A third type of fellowship is the entrepreneurial fellowship, in which a student develops a complete proposal for a new agency and applies for funds to run the agency herself. The most notable example is the Echoing Green Fellowship. A fourth type of fellowship is the project-based fellowship in which a student develops a complete proposal for a project that is housed at a host organization and then applies for funds to support the project. The most notable project-based fellowship is the Equal Justice Works Fellowship. The main difference between the entrepreneurial and project-based fellowship is that a host organization is a partner in the application for the project-based fellowship, while there is no host organization in the entrepreneurial fellowship.

There is also a catch-all category for fellowships that are not so easily defined. This includes fellowships like the three-year Public Defender Corps program that provides essential skills training for aspiring public defenders.

The panel did not spend a lot of time talking about the different categories and instead spoke in detail about the two postgraduate opportunities offered by Equal Justice Works. The first, the Equal Justice Works Americorps, supports 80 entry-level positions with predetermined public service organizations in 17 states and the District of Columbia. The positions last one year with an option to renew. During their term of service, the fellows support the organization’s work and receive invaluable training. The second postgraduate opportunity offered by Equal Justice Works is the project-based Equal Justice Works Fellowship (introduced above). For that program, a student or an attorney collaborates with a host organization to develop and design a project and pitch that project to Equal Justice Works one year in advance of the start date. Ninety such fellowships are offered each year. Unlike the Equal Justice Works Americorps Program, the Fellowship Program places no limit on the number of years an applicant has been out of school.

The panel offered a wealth of advice for persons planning to pursue a project-based fellowship, like the Equal Justice Works Fellowship. The first task is for the applicant to envision their dream job and research and approach potential host organizations. All of the panelists agreed that it is never too early to do this work. Indeed, they advised that if you are considering the possibility of applying for an Equal Justice Works Fellowship, you should spend your first summer in law school working with an organization that has hosted Fellows in the past.

Finally, the panel explained that the best applications demonstrate a compelling need, know the community and get stakeholder buy-in (either through service on an advisory board or participation in community workshops and focus groups), propose realistic and targeted strategies (i.e., replicate successful models by looking at what’s been funded in the past), show commitment to the work and get extensive feedback!

For more information about all postgraduate fellowships, visit www.pslawnet.org/postgraduatefellowships or make an appointment to meet with me.

If you have any questions about any of these topics, please don’t hesitate to call the front desk at LCS (415-442-6625) and ask to make an appointment with me!

Fellowships, Funding and Federal Jobs

by Elana Konstant

For all those 3L students out there who are thinking about applying for a public interest fellowship or a government job through the various Federal Honors Programs, this post is for YOU.

If you are considering a fellowship, you should check out PSLawNet’s one-page “dos and don'ts” list for Fellowship Applications. The substance of these tips comes directly from fellows, funders, and host organization staff.

EQUAL JUSTICE WORKS FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS
The 2010 Equal Justice Works Fellowship application is available here.

Important reminders:

Review the application ASAP. EJW recommends that prospective candidates review the online application form as soon as possible to familiarize themselves with how it works and to prepare the necessary items required to apply -- the online application, the Certification Form (signed by both candidate and host organization and accompanied this year by a Benefits Summary Sheet) and up to two letters of recommendation.

Begin working on the application early. There are character limits noted for each text box, and character counts may differ between a word processing program and the application. It is therefore important for candidates to paste the text into the application well in advance of the deadline to ensure that the text fits in the allotted space. The server also grows increasingly busy as the deadline approaches.

Hard copy documents must be received by September 17. The deadline for submission of the application, which is done online, is 2 pm PST on September 17th. A signed Certification Form and up to 2 recommendation letter(s) must be received by Equal Justice Works no later than September 17th. These items must be mailed or hand delivered. Faxes and emails will not be accepted.

If you have questions, please email fellowships@equaljusticeworks.org or call (202) 466-3686, extension 202.

US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
SUMMER & POST-GRADUATE OPPORTUNITIES
Every year GGU students are hired through the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Attorney General's Honors Program and the Summer Law Internship Program (SLIP). These are outstanding opportunities to jumpstart your career as an attorney for the United States. If you are interested in working for the DOJ as a summer intern or after graduation in 2010, NOW is the time to start planning!

The Department of Justice is an excellent place to begin your legal career, with multiple locations and practice areas to explore. Note to 3L students: The Honors Program is the only recruitment program for entry-level attorneys at the DOJ. The application period opens online July 25 and closes September 8, 2009. Click here to learn more.

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GUIDE TO GOVERNMENT HONORS
& INTERNSHIP HANDBOOK
The updated version of this guide is now available here.

This comprehensive directory includes listings and application deadlines for most student and entry-level positions with government agencies nationwide.

In addition to the DOJ, the following agencies also hire both law school graduates and summer interns through honors programs:

Central Intelligence Agency (link)
Commerce Department - Office of the General Counsel (link)
Education Department (link)
Environmental Protection Agency (link)
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (link)
Federal Bureau of Investigations (link)
Federal Election Commission (link)
Federal Trade Commission (link)
Homeland Security Department (Honors link ; Summer link)
Housing and Urban Development Department (link)
Interior Department (link)
Internal Revenue Service (link)
Labor Department (link)
Securities and Exchange Commission (link)
Transportation Department (link)
Treasury Department (link)

Information about these positions and others can be found in the Arizona Guide. Please contact LCS (lawcareer@ggu.edu or 415-442-6625) for login information.

If you have any questions about the application process for fellowships or federal positions, please email me at ekonstant@ggu.edu or call (415) 369-5391.