2026 Summer Law Clerk at Public Justice Foundation – Washington, District of Columbia

About Public Justice Foundation

Public Justice is a nonprofit legal advocacy organization that takes on the biggest systemic threats to justice of our time—abusive corporate power and predatory practices, the assault on civil rights, and the destruction of the Earth’s sustainability. It connects high-impact litigation with strategic communications and the strength of our partnerships to fight these abusive and discriminatory systems and win social and economic justice.

About the role

Public Justice seeks to hire four law clerks for Summer 2026, one in each of our four project areas. While each law clerk will focus on a single project area, they may work in other project areas as need and opportunity arise. Our four project areas are:

What you'll do

· The Access to Justice Project seeks to make the civil court system a fair, equitable, and effective tool for those with less power to win just outcomes. Primarily through high-impact litigation, we dismantle the procedural and structural barriers between ordinary people and the civil justice system, such as forced arbitration, limits on collective actions, overly strict standing requirements, and unwarranted court secrecy.

· The Debtors’ Prison Project fights to end the criminalization of poverty and shrink the carceral system. Working with allies and impacted communities, we use litigation, advocacy, and education to ensure no one is jailed simply because they can’t pay and to stop governments and for-profit corporations from treating people impacted by the system as a revenue source.

· The Students’ Civil Rights Project combines high-impact litigation with other advocacy tools to combat harassment and other forms of discrimination in schools. We strive to create systemic change so all students can learn and thrive, and to secure justice for students who are denied educational opportunities based on their race, national origin, ethnicity, or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

The Environmental Enforcement Project goes to court every day to fight climate change, secure environmental justice, and make polluters pay. We utilize the most powerful tools available to citizens by enforcing our Nation’s environmental laws in state and federal courts. Our experienced litigators win precedent-setting cases that result in meaningful, transformative change. We hold polluters accountable by requiring corporations to clean up their act and comply with our Nation’s environmental laws.Qualifications

• Describe the experience and attributes of the ideal candidate