Law Career Services

Alumni

Neighborhood Legal Services Association

Law Student Summer Internship Program 2008
Pittsburgh Office
JUNE 2-AUGUST 8

Neighborhood Legal Services Association (NLSA) is a private, non-profit Pennsylvania corporation established in 1966 to provide free legal services in civil cases to low-income people. The program serves the residents of four counties in Western Pennsylvania. The program's mission is to meet the civil legal needs of the poor and vulnerable in our community through effective legal representation and education.

Intern program:
Our goal is to provide an intensive hands-on experience which exposes aspiring lawyers to a range of legal issues and remedies. Students in our summer intern program will assist us in our work in a variety of ways.  The focus for 2008 is on housing issues:

• Students will participate in a summer Magisterial District Judge project in which they will interview and help prepare clients for Landlord-Tenant hearings. All students will counsel clients on landlord-tenant issues working with NLSA Helpline attorneys.  If the student is certified, he/she may represent clients at hearings.
  
  
• Interns will help develop and implement an outreach program for low-income tenants.  This is a pilot project, with the goal of encouraging students to use the substantive knowledge they gain in a creative way.  We expect the unexpected!
  
  
• In addition to those housing-related projects, the students will assist at the evening clinics on consumer and family law and accompany the Elder Law attorneys to Senior Centers.

The educational aspects of the program include several days of orientation during which students are introduced to the legal fundamentals of landlord tenant and evidentiary matters.  At weekly meetings, discussion of the cases and issues handled the previous week furthers the intern’s education in both substantive and procedural law.  There are occasional "lunch and learn" meetings featuring speakers on a variety of legal topics.  In 2007, the Lunch and Learn sessions included a skills training on negotiation, and a presentation by an Unemployment Compensation referee on decoding the bureau’s paperwork.

At all times interns will be trained and supervised by staff attorneys at NLSA. This training will include interviewing, counseling, fact gathering, drafting, witness preparation, case analysis, and litigation. The students will learn about poverty law issues, lawyering skills, ethics, and professional conduct by working side by side with attorneys who have dedicated their professional careers to serving others. 

Some comments from interns in previous years:

“This was an amazing experience and I am grateful for both your patience and the opportunity.”

“The orientation sessions were extremely helpful.  I believe that they prepared us as adequately as you can without the actual experience.”

”The programs are great and help a wide range of people while acting as a great teaching tool for law students.”

“The summer has been a great experience–not only because I learned a lot about the law, but because it allowed me to build confidence and actually impact people’s lives.  I can’t think of another internship program I could have done after my first year of law school that could compare with the experience I got at NLSA this summer.  Thank you!”

Will you be paid for working here?

The NLSA interns have always been volunteers, some of whom have received funding from other sources.  For the first time in 2008, NLSA is seeking funding for its intern program and will report here on that effort.

Fellowships:
If we are not able to obtain funding to pay all the summer interns, NLSA will continue, as we have in past years, to actively seek fellowships and grants for its summer students, and we will cooperate with any student accepted into the summer intern program to help him or her apply for funding to work here.

Some possible sources of funding include:

Martin Luther King, Jr. Summer Intern Program:
http://www.palegalservices.org/mlk_program.htm

K& L Gates
http://www.klgates.com/files/FileControl/2c5757dc-c3d2-4e53-b3c8-3a5d4850d245/7483b893-e478-44a4-8fed-f49aa917d8cf/Presentation/File/2007_Fellowship_Application_Guidelines.pdf    
Equal Justice Works:
http://www.equaljusticeworks.org/fellows/2007fellow.php

Equal Justice America:
http://www.equaljusticeamerica.org/ApplicationSummer2006.htm

Site listing many summer grant programs:
http://www.pic.org/

University of Pittsburgh Law School:
http://students.law.pitt.edu/plisf/

Duquesne Law School:
http://www.law.duq.edu/career/SerAwdFel.html 

The public interest program at your law school.

How to apply:
Applications may be submitted after January 1, 2008.  There is no deadline to apply but offers will be made on a rolling basis after March 1st.  Preference is given to law students who are eligible to appear in court pursuant to Pa. Bar Admission Rule 321.

For more information contact Attorney Catherine Martin at martinc@nlsa.us.