Hosting a Fellow

What LAAC pays a host and a fellow

Finding permanent employment in civil legal aid is difficult for recent grads, and this program creates bridge funding that allows graduates time to study for and take the California Bar Exam and build their resume and skills, while also providing that important capacity to legal services organizations.

• 1 LAAC pays the fellow a $16,000 stipend in three installments.
• 2 LAAC pays your organization $1,500 toward onboarding, State Bar registration, training and supervision. LAAC's FAQ lists $1,200 as the planned 2026 figure; the fellowship page and the March information session both say $1,500.
• 3 You get 375 of the fellow's 400 hours; the other 25 go to LAAC's learning sessions. Spread over roughly six months, minus the July bar-exam blackout.

The supervision rule

Court rules allow recent graduates the ability to provide legal services while under the supervision of legal nonprofits through California Rules of Court 9.42.

In practice that means a supervising attorney at your organization under the State Bar's Rules Governing Practical Training of Law Students, which LAAC asks every host to comply with, and work that stays within what Rule 9.42 permits an unlicensed graduate to do.

What LAAC asks of a host

• 1 501(c)(3) status or fiscal sponsorship.
• 2 A legal agency, or a social services agency with a legal department, providing direct legal services, litigation, policy advocacy, or community lawyering.
• 3 Based, or with a satellite office, in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma or Yolo county. Organizations serving primarily rural Californians in other counties are also eligible.
• 4 May apply to host up to three fellows.

If you already have someone in mind

Joint applications are for an LSO host to apply with a law student that they’ve already identified. Solo applications are for law students and potential LSO hosts to apply separately, and LAAC will do the best to quickly match to see if a connection can be made. Joint applications are prioritized and processed first.

The number of joint applications LAAC approves determines how many solo applicants it can place, so a joint application is the single most useful thing an organization can file early in the cycle.