About Duke Law

Employment

Introduction
Collaboration with Career Services Office
Resources Available
Supporting National Organizations
Loan Repayment Assistance Program at Duke Law School
Summer Public Interest Employment & Fellowships
Post-Graduate Fellowships
Career Speakers and Programs

Introduction

The Department of Public Interest and Pro Bono and the Office of Career Services work closely together to plan public interest programming and to provide counseling to assist students who seek public interest or public sector employment, as well as to help those who seek private employment to find opportunities for public service. Interested students are encouraged to explore the offerings of both offices, but this introduction may assist you in knowing when to come to the Office of Public Interest and Pro Bono:


Collaboration with Career Services Office

The Office of Public Interest and Pro Bono and Career Services work together to give students the support they need in making decisions about their careers and to assist them in locating their first job. The Offices also provide assistance to alumni seeking to change jobs. The two offices work together on lunch programs, the public interest summer employment recognition day, the public interest retreat, the summer fellowship programs, promotion of the Equal Justice Works Career Fair, and other activities.

Duke Law School's Career Services Office assists students with job location in all sectors — law firms, non-profit, government, international and less traditional jobs. It has an extremely high record of placement and boasts one of the most comprehensive on-campus interviewing programs in the country. Its web site explains its services and has links to many useful sites. See Career Services Web Site (Public Interest Section).

The Office of Career Services receives hundreds of solicitations from public interest employers offering summer internships, as well as post-graduate fellowships and employment. These jobs can be readily searched through the Job Bank on the eattorney database, accessible with a student password at http://www.eattorney.com. The Office also maintains files on organizations and has a reading library of books on work in all sectors.

Due to the financial constraints of public interest agencies, the majority of the nearly 400 employers traveling to interview at Duke represent the private sector. Nonetheless, each year a wide variety of public interest and government employers likewise participate in the on-campus program. In recent interviewing seasons, these employers have included: the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the D.C. Public Defender Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Institute of Government, the Raleigh United States Attorney's Office, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Postal Service, Legal Aid of North Carolina, and several Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs). Because public interest employers travel to law schools less frequently, students are strongly encouraged to attend public interest career fairs, especially the Equal Justice Works (formerly known as NAPIL) held each fall in the Washington, D.C. area. You can read more about this below.


Resources Available

The Public Interest and Pro Bono suite (4050) contains information on employment and public interest that is garnered from multiple sources. Material is sent to the Office from potential employers and from organizations around the country. Other material is available that is produced by Career Services and Public Interest/Pro Bono or purchased for your review. Students are invited to sit in the reception area and browse through the collection. Many handouts are available for you to take with you, and some material may be checked out on loan.

Newly available job opportunities for students and alumni are announced on the home page of the Public Interest and Pro Bono website and held in the Web archives.

Students seeking counseling about public interest employment are welcome to make an appointment with Associate Dean Carol Spruill to complement the counseling they receive in the Office of Career Services.

Students are also encouraged to review faculty profiles to become familiar with the activities, connections and research interests of faculty and use them as a source of advice and an entré to employment opportunities.


Supporting National Organizations

Duke Law School is a member of several national organizations that provide employment-related services for its students and alumni. PSLawNet, EJW, NALP and the Arizona Law School Government Honors Handbook are described below, as well as other national organizations and websites with useful information.

PSLawNet

Duke Law School is a member of PSLawNet (The Public Service Law Network Worldwide) which is a global network of some 120 member law schools and nearly 10,000 law-related public service organizations and offices around the world. PSLawNet fosters law student community service and encourages all future lawyers to incorporate public service into their careers. To that end, PSLawNet offers comprehensive, current information on a broad range of pro bono and public service opportunities, as well as resources and expertise to assist law schools in empowering future lawyers as public servants.

Students at each of the member law schools have access to a database to search for appropriate public service opportunities. The database currently lists several thousand organizations with available public service opportunities ranging from short-term, uncompensated volunteer positions during school semesters to full-time summer internships, to post-graduate jobs and fellowships. This website is especially comprehensive and useful for identifying public and NGO-sector positions around the world for those seeking summer positions. To use the database (if you are a Duke Law student) or to learn about other services provided by PSLawNet, go to the PSLawNet website.

History Note: PSLawNet was started by NYU Law School and was initially called PBSA (Pro Bono Students America) to concentrate on pro bono placements. It grew to include information on public interest employment around the world. In the summer of 2003, NYU transferred the PSLawNet administration to the National Association of Law Placements (NALP) which is the primary organization assisting Career Services Offices in U.S. law schools.

Equal Justice Works (formerly known as NAPIL - The National Association for Public Interest Law)

Equal Justice Works is "the country's leading organization engaged in organizing, training and supporting public service-minded law students, and is the national leader in creating summer and postgraduate public interest jobs." It sponsors the nation's largest public interest job fair for law school students; has more than 140 fellows (70+ per year) in two-year fellowships with nonprofit organizations across the country; provides around 150 "educational awards" of $1000 to students doing summer public interest work and has about 60 additional summer jobs at selected organizations where students receive the educational awards of $1000 plus salaries of $600-900 per month and relocation expenses; sponsors an annual conference and smaller conferences and training events around the country; works with local student law school chapters (Duke's is called PILF); takes the leadership in promoting loan forgiveness programs at law schools; and much more. We strongly encourage all Duke Law students seeking summer or permanent public interest employment to go to the Equal Justice Works Career Fair held in mid-fall every year in DC. See more below.

Government Honors and Internship Handbook

Duke Law School subscribes to this comprehensive compilation of federal government honors and intern programs of the University of Arizona School of Law. It includes both summer and post-graduate positions. (The link above is to an Office of Career Services page and requires you to enter OCS's password to gain access to the Handbook. You can also come to the Office of Public Interest and Pro Bono to see a hard copy and to get the password for the Handbook.)

NALP - National Association for Law Placement

The National Association for Law Placement, the governing body for law school and law firm recruiting administrators, maintains important statistics about legal hiring, information about judicial clerkships, and a bibliography for those seeking resources about non-traditional legal employment.

Starting in the summer of 2003, NALP has assumed administration of PSLawNet, the most comprehensive database of Public Service positions.

Other Websites and Sources on Public Interest Employment

In addition to EJW, the Government Honors & Internship Handbook, NAPL and PSLawNet, there are many other websites with extensive information on public interest and government employment (both summer and post-graduate). These are a few:

Government Job Listings


Loan Repayment Assistance Program at Duke Law School

Duke Law School has a loan assistance program under which qualifying graduates receive help in paying a percentage of their educational loan repayments. The program has two goals. The first goal is to help enable graduates to select their employment without having options precluded because of financial impossibility. The second goal is to encourage Duke law graduates to choose public interest careers. The Faculty recognizes that the legal community has a responsibility to provide services to people who cannot otherwise afford representation. The program has been adopted in the hope that it may help remove an obstacle to providing such valuable assistance.

Despite the relatively small size of its student body, Duke Law School is one of the top ten law schools in expenditures on loan assistance among the 50 law schools with a loan assistance program, and was one of the early law schools to adopt a program. In 2003-2004, 23 graduates received assistance.

For more information about the program, contact the Office of Financial Aid, Duke Law School, Box 90363, Durham, NC 27708-0363, phone (919) 613-7025, or send an e-mail to financial_aid@law.duke.edu. Students who have questions about their individual situation should see Laura Wrobel, Assistant Director of Admissions and Financial Aid.               (LRAP section updated 4/18/05.)

View the Loan Repayment Assistance Policy


Summer Public Interest Employment & Fellowships

The Office of Public Interest and Pro Bono encourages students to lay the groundwork for their long term public interest aspirations by including public interest employment as one of their summer experiences, as well as to participate in clinics and pro bono work throughout their law school years.

Public interest employment is particularly popular among first-year students, who often receive internal and external funding for these important positions. In summer 2001, 70 students worked in public interest or public sector employment, both domestically and internationally. In the summer of 2002, ninety-three students worked in the public sector and 39 of them received summer public interest fellowships that are available solely to Duke Law students. In the summer of 2003, fifty-seven Duke Law students received summer public interest employment fellowships totaling $131,780. In the summer of 2004, forty-six Duke Law students received over $150,000 in fellowship awards. These fellowships allow Duke Law students to work at the placement of their choice, even when that employer did not have the funds to hire them. 

Most nonprofit or government organizations do not have the funds to hire summer clerks. Fortunately, funding is increasingly available from other sources. Because funding is available that is somewhat portable, the Office of Public Interest and Pro Bono encourages students to think big — concentrate on the job of your dreams, not just the job that pays!

Funding for Public Interest Summer Employment

Most of the sources described below are available only to Duke Law Students (Burdman/Steckley-Weitzel/Carroll-Simon, Duke's IOLTA Fellowships, PILF, Stanback). Other sources of funding listed are available to law students around the country.

Duke Law School Endowments for Summer Fellowships — Burdman/Steckley-Weitzel/Carroll-Simon

Duke Law School has received three endowments of over $100,000 each to permanently support summer fellowships. The donors are former Associate Dean Linda Steckley and her husband, Pete Weitzel; Duke Alumnus Richard Burdman '56; and alumni couple Candace Carroll '74 and Len Simon '73. Three fellowships of $3500 were awarded in the summers of 2002 and 2003, and six fellowships of $3000 each were awarded in 2004.

IOLTA

The IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts) program, which is a branch of the North Carolina State Bar, for many years has been giving each of the five North Carolina law schools a $15,000 grant so that five law students from each school can receive a $3000 summer fellowship to work in selected North Carolina nonprofit organizations or government agencies. In December 2004, IOLTA announced that it is cutting back to $9,000, so only three awards of $3000 each will be made. This is because interest rates were low and IOLTA did not want to cut direct services for clients. Also, IOLTA decided not to fund internships with District Attorney Offices because these agencies are better funded. 

Recipients are selected by a committee organized by the Office of Public Interest & Pro Bono. Students must secure a letter from the employer stating that it will serve as the host organization and submit an application and essay. An announcement about the application process is sent early in the spring semester. Students who would like to review the list of approved IOLTA placements can pick up a copy at the Public Interest Office (suite 4050) or in the Office of Career Services, and can make an appointment with Associate Dean Carol Spruill to learn more about these placements.

PILF

The Public Interest Law Foundation (PILF) was created by and is run by Duke Law students. In addition to supporting public interest activities generally, it also raises funds for students to receive summer public interest fellowships. Funds are raised through an annual auction, sweatshirt sales, trivia night, pledge drive (students working in the private sector are asked to contribute one day's pay) and other activities. Each year, PILF members decide who will receive the grants and the criteria for the selection. All students who wish to receive a grant must work a minimum number of hours to help raise funds in order to be eligible. To find out about this year's program, visit the PILF web site and contact PILF officers.

PILF's talent at fund raising grows each year. In the summer of 2002, PILF raised over $48,100 and after the Law School added $10,000 in matching funds, PILF awarded 24 student summer scholarships, totaling more than $58,000. For summer 2003, PILF raised $56,280, added $10,000 from Duke Law School and awarded $66,280 in fellowship money to 39 Duke Law students. For the summer of 2004, PILF raised $57,400, added $10,000 from the Law School and awarded $67,400 to 29 students.

Duke Law School Contribution to PILF

The Dean adds $10,000 to the Public Interest and Pro Bono budget to go to PILF fellowship grants. In addition, many faculty, administrators and staff donate money and auction items.

Stanback Summer Fellowships for Environmental Placements

Stanback Fellowships are available to Duke Law students. This program is sponsored by the Nicholas School of the Environment through a donation from Fred Stanback. The grant awards are $4000, and Duke Law students have received 10 of them for the summers of 2002, 2003 and 2004. Students do not need to be specialists in environmental law to receive these awards. Over 40 environmental organizations receive placements, and about 10-14 placements have legally-related projects. Information on applications, and descriptions of the projects at each of these locations are placed on the Nicholas School of the Environment web site, usually in late fall.

Equal Justice Works (formerly NAPIL) Summer Fellowships

Equal Justice Works typically offers about 150 or more "Summer Corp" fellowships (actually called an "education award") of $1000 for those working a minimum of 381 hours with a nonprofit organization of their choice anywhere in the United States. Recipients are free to add this award to other funding they might receive, such as IOLTA or PILF fellowships. Three Duke Law students received an EJW fellowship in the summer of 2000. For more information on how to receive these education awards, visit the Equal Justice Works website. Caveat: EJW usually awards these on a first-come first-serve basis and they are typically used up early in the year.

Equal Justice Works also has a "NAPIL/VISTA Summer Legal Corps" which places 60 law students with pre-selected community development and capacity-building project in low-income neighborhoods around the country. Recipients receive $600 to $900 (depending on the location) per month for positions that last 10 weeks. They also receive the $1000 "education award" and relocation expenses. Descriptions of the available projects are on the Equal Justice Works website.

"Split Summers"

For several years, a growing number of law firms have sponsored public interest summer fellowships. These programs allow students to split their summer between the law firm and a nonprofit organization or government agency with the law firm paying students' salaries for the entire summer.

The Career Service Office at Yale Law School generously shares a comprehensive list of split summer opportunities. Copies are available in the Public Interest suite (4050) or on the web at http://www.law.yale.edu/outside/html/career_development/cdo-splitsummerinfo.htm.

Other Summer Funding

A list of other summer funding fellowships and internships can be found on the web site of PSLawNet.

Paid Employment

Don't forget, many government and nonprofit employers do pay! Look for these opportunities in materials in the Career Services and the Public Interest & Pro Bono offices, on the Public Interest job announcements section of the Public Interest home page and archives, on the many public interest web data bases, or on the web sites of the individual organizations and agencies. And remember that many of these job offers come in very late in the year, long after law firms have made their offers. Don't let a late-arriving great job go begging because you settled for one you didn't really want!

Also, be flexible. The wider your scope of interests and the wider your geographic parameters, the more likely you are to match a great job.

Pro Bono Summer Employment

Didn't find the paying job or fellowship you wanted? Keep your resume alive, have fun, make contacts, contribute to the public good, and do the work that you love most by volunteering. When you volunteer, you are not trying to fit yourself into someone else's box. You have a lot more leeway in your choice of employment and in your working hours. You could offer to work full-time, or work part-time in your public interest job and part-time in a paying job that may not be a legal job or a public interest job. In thinking about the paying jobs, remember all the things you can do - from tutoring kids in a foreign language to doing part-time legal research for a law school professor or administrator.


Post-Graduate Fellowships

With a dearth of paying public interest positions, post-graduate fellowships are wonderful opportunities for students to have more choice in pursuing the public interest employment of their dreams. Though a handful of fellowship programs are well-known, PSLawNet has identified over 440 fellowship programs.

Students who know they will be interested in applying for a post-graduate fellowship are encouraged to start work on this process early. Many of the deadlines are very early in the third year of law school so your application should be almost complete when you return to school. Some students start the process as early as their first year by choosing as their first summer employer someone whom they think might be a good sponsor for their application.

Fellowships come in many forms. Some are provided by organizations themselves and basically are like an entry-level salary for a one or two-year commitment. Some are sponsored by law firms and allow recipients to do public interest work while in the firm or on leave from the firm. Some of these law firm fellowships promise a position back in the firm after the public interest work, while some, like the prominent Skadden Arps fellowship, award the fellowship for public interest work with no connection to working in the firm after the fellowship. Some fellowships are provided by law schools for teaching in clinics, doing public interest work, or research and writing, and may or may not lead to an LL.M. degree. Most notably, Georgetown University Law Center offers nine LL.M. fellowship programs. Some students raise grant money directly from foundations and outside the fellowship process for a project of their own design. Finally, some organizations award fellowships for recipients to work at sponsoring organizations. Some of the best known of these are the Equal Justice Works (formerly NAPIL) fellowships (which currently sponsors over 140 fellows working on two-year fellowships), the Skadden Fellowships, Soros Open Society Institute fellowships, the echoing green fellowships and the Holland & Knight fellowship which combines a summer fellowship with a post-graduate fellowship leading to permanent employment with the firm.

The process of searching for post-graduate fellowships has been greatly aided by PSLawNet, which publishes an on-line fellowship database, that has taken over the publication of the Fellowship Guide started by Yale Law School. The PSLawNet Fellowship Guide is probably the most comprehensive listing of post-graduate fellowships for lawyers. Most of the fellowships are for new law graduates or up to ten years out. Duke Law School subscribes to PSLawNet for use by Duke Law students and alumni.

To use the Fellowship Guide on the internet, go to http://www.pslawnet.org/ and register as a Duke Law student or alumni. Once in, click on Reports. That will take you to a page where the only report listed is the Fellowship Guide.

Students interested in applying for post-graduate fellowships should talk with Senior Career Counselor Mary Dillon in the Office of Career Services. She is focusing on assisting Duke Law students to take advantage of this prestigious path to public service employment.


Career Speakers and Programs

The Office of Public Interest and Pro Bono is just one source of programs on public interest employment. It works with Career Service on public interest employment orientation and other workshops targeted at public interest. External Relations joins in programs that feature alumni making public service contributions. Centers and Programs, student clubs, other departments of the Law School, and the named-lecture series all feature speakers who are not only experts on their topic but are role models and examples of inspiring career paths.

Though almost every aspect of the Office of Pubic Interest and Pro Bono is, in a sense, about careers, this section will feature the main employment-related events of the Office of Public Interest and Pro Bono.

Table Talk and Summer Public Interest Employment Recognition Day

Each November, Duke Law School recognizes all students who have contributed their previous law school summer to working in the public sector. The honored students are then enlisted in sharing their experiences with the rest of the student body as a way of helping them find their own public sector jobs.

Public Interest Summer Employment Recognition Day begins with a breakfast event, sponsored by the Duke Law School Office of External Relations, and words of appreciation from the Dean. An email announcement is sent to the Law School community naming all who are being honored. Honorees are given a badge to wear during the day, "Ask Me About Public Interest."

During lunch, the entire student body is invited to a "Table Talk" where the honorees sit at 10-15 tables, divided by type of employment. Students may visit all tables of interest to inquire about the summer employment experiences of their fellow students and to learn about how to obtain the jobs and fellowships. In the fall of 2003, students had the choice of going to tables featuring legal services and other civil legal advocacy organizations; criminal defense and criminal prosecution; environmental law; federal and state agencies; international law; think tanks and advocacy groups; U.S., state and county attorneys; and clerkships. In the fall of 2002, ninety-three students were honored for their work in the nonprofit or government sectors.

Public Interest Retreat

While the Public Interest Retreat serves many purposes, employment is always a predominant focus. Alumni who work in the public sectors or who have found a way to incorporate significant pro bono into their private practice are invited to speak and to lead students in a discussion of their aspirations and career choices. For the 2003-2004 academic year, the Public Interest Retreat will be held on February 6-7, 2004. Read more about the Retreat on this website, and visit the Office of Public Interest and Pro Bono to see how you can get involved in planning it.

Equal Justice Works (formerly NAPIL) Job Fair Promotion

The Office of Public Interest and Pro Bono strongly encourages all students who seek permanent or summer employment in the public interest sectors to attend the Equal Justice Works Conference and Job Fair in Washington, DC. Over 200 employers from government and nonprofit organizations interview upperclass students or have "table talk" with first year students.

This is the largest public interest job fair in the country, so it is a unique opportunity for students to find out about a wide array of employment choices and to start making contacts. In addition to access to employers, the conference features inspirational speakers and panels on current hot topics, as well as job seeking advice. It also features many of the Equal Justice Works fellows who are currently working on their two-year fellowship at locations around the country.

The Office of Public Interest and Pro Bono joins Career Services in having a program in the fall, and other publicity, to explain to students the advantages of attending this event. Interested students should register in the Office of Career Services. Some of the registration expenses are paid by that office. PILF sometimes organizes shared transportation. Administrators from the Public Interest and Career Services Offices attend the event to assist students on-site.

The job fair is open to law students of any year and also alumni. First-year students can attend this event even though it comes before the November 1 deadline set by NALP for employment-related activities. First-year students can talk with employers during the "table talk" portion of the conference, but may not pre-arrange an interview. (Only a few of the most high-demand employers do not make time to talk with first-year students.) Students who are beyond their first year should send their applications and requests for interviews to participating employers ahead of time. This process is explained on the EJW website and is managed by Career Services. Finally, the EJW job fair is also open to alumni.

Since funding is available to most students through the law school fellowships, students can use the job fair to meet a wide array of potential employers from all over the country, and seek opportunities to work with their favorite organizations who do not have to pay them!

To learn more about the many services provided by Equal Justice Works, see Equal Justice Works above or visit the Equal Justice Works website.

>Women Judges Panel

Each spring, female judges from several trial and appellate levels of the North Carolina court system visit Duke Law School to encourage female students to consider the judiciary as a career choice. This effort began with the vision of North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Linda McGee, working through the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys, in recognition of the low percentage of females in the judiciary. In addition to its stated goal, the event has also served as a time for students to talk informally to women with demanding and high profile jobs about career pressures and the effect of these on their personal lives. In spring 2002, all five female members of the NC Court of Appeals participated in the women judges panel at Duke Law School, and four returned in 2003 to join female judges from various trial courts. Students and the judge enjoy a late afternoon wine and cheese reception, panel presentation and discussion.