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Legal Aid Association of California New Attorney Pipeline

Closing next Equal Justice Works applications close September 17 in 9 days

The whole year

Your year 2L

Second Year

This is the year the calendar starts mattering. Your second summer often becomes your career, and the interviews for it happen in the fall.

In the fall of their second year, many law students interview for summer positions that ultimately turn into their career.

Legal Aid Association of California.

Three people in suits sit at desks in a bright office lobby and look toward the camera, a fourth standing behind them by the window, a backpack on the floor beside them, while others talk in the background.
Advocates in a Sacramento office lobby between meetings

Do this

Three things worth doing this year

  1. Line up the second summer now, not in March

    Second-summer interviews at legal services organizations run through the fall. The organizations below have all taken someone who was not licensed yet, and every one of them is a place you can write to directly.

  2. Apply for the money at the same time as the placement

    The Dan Bradley Fellowship funds a summer at a LAAC member organization, up to $12,075, for students working on rural issues or consumer rights. It runs on its own cycle and LAAC announces the next one early in the year.

  3. Start the conversations a 3L application will need

    Skadden and Equal Justice Works both require you to design a project with a host organization before you apply, and those applications close early in your 3L fall. The relationship comes first, sometimes by a year.

Wherever you are

Talk to people before you need anything from them

Then, when you’re at an organization, even as a volunteer, talk to people. Ask if you can join someone for coffee in person or on zoom to ask them about their work. If you’re on the benefits team, but you have always wanted to learn about housing, ask the housing lead if you can chat with them. Make friends at your own organization and at others. We are a small community in that everyone eventually knows everyone else, and if you make it known that you are interested in direct services work, but you’re currently doing policy work, friends may let you know about opportunities. This is especially important if you are moving across the state and still want to work in legal aid.

Five of the organizations that have hired before the bar

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