Tulane’s Career Development Office (CDO) provides support and guidance to students interested in practicing public interest law or who plan to make public service a part of their professional careers.
Beginning in the fall of their 1L year, the CDO helps students identify public interest opportunities and assists students with finding funding sources for their work. The CDO regularly hosts educational panels focusing on public interest careers and provides information about networking and job opportunities. Students have access to a variety of resources to assist with their public interest job search.
Public Interest Job Search Resources
CDO’s Public Interest Handbook. This handbook is found on CRIS, in the Document Library. (CRIS is the CDO’s online database, where students can apply for interview programs and view job postings, upcoming events, career resources, and much more.)
PSJD: Tulane Law is a member of this online database for law students and lawyers to connect with public service job notices and career-building resources. Job listings include internships (fall, spring, and summer), postgraduate fellowships, and a wide variety of permanent positions. PSJD also includes an online library of educational and career-building resources for those interested in pursuing a career in public service. PSJD is free to all Tulane Law students. To create an account, go to www.psjd.org and click “New Jobseeker” in the top right-hand corner.
Additional Resources:
Idealist.org: A social-impact job board, with job listings that include opportunities across a variety of nonprofits, social-impact businesses, and public service.
National Legal Aid and Defender Association: Includes a Job Board (link located at the top of the home page), with post-graduate positions in civil legal aid services organizations, defender organizations, public interest organizations, public interest law firms, and academia. See NLADA Job Board.
NonProfitJob.org: Lists open opportunities with not-for-profit employers. Search Non Profit Jobs.
Philanthropy News Digest: PND summarizes philanthropy-related articles and features culled from print and electronic media outlets nationwide. PND’s Job Board features positions at U.S. foundations, grantmaking public charities, nonprofit organizations, and educational institutions.
Public Interest Job Search Boards and Databases: Prepared by Harvard Law School, this is an informative and comprehensive site, including multiple public interest career guides, toolkits, summer and post-grad opportunities, and funding information. Also includes links to multiple Specialty Area Job Sites, including Animal Law, Civil Rights, Criminal Prosecution and Defense, Environmental Law, Human Rights Law, Immigration and Refugee Law, International Development, and Women’s Law.
Work for Good: Job board connecting mission-oriented organizations with purpose-driven professionals.
The Equal Justice Works Career Fair hosts the largest public interest legal career fair in the country. Every year, typically in the Fall, the Career Fair brings together hundreds of public interest employers from across the United States for 3 days of prescheduled interviews and informal virtual networking sessions.
For details regarding the conference, including participating employers, please visit www.equaljusticeworks.org. For additional questions, please contact the CDO.
Summer Opportunities and Funding Sources
The Equal Justice Works Career Fair in the Fall is a great place to begin your search for a summer position in public interest and/or in the public sector. In the Spring, the CDO organizes an event to connect public interest-minded students with local public interest organizations for summer internship opportunities. There are multiple ways to obtain funding to work in public interest:
Tulane’s Public Interest Law Foundation (PILF) - Public interest-minded students are encouraged to join PILF, a student-led organization which promotes interest and opportunities in public interest law; PILF also helps fund the PILF Grant, a summer stipend available for qualifying students to work public interest.
Equal Justice Works offers several paid Summer Fellowship Programs, providing opportunities for law students to serve the community by providing free civil legal aid. EJW Summer Fellowship Programs include: (1) Rural Summer Legal Corps; (2) Disaster Resilience Program; and (3) Crime Victims Advocacy Program. For additional information, please see Fellowship Programs - Equal Justice Works or contact the CDO.
Public Interest Paid Internships & Grants – The CDO maintains a list of paid public interest internships and grants. This list is found on CRIS, in the Document Library.
Tulane has many distinguished alumni serving in the public interest arena who are willing to mentor and serve as resources for current law students considering public service careers. Graduates have pursued government employment as prosecutors, as public defenders, and in a wide range of traditional public interest organizations, including in environmental law, criminal justice, civil rights, housing, health care, immigration, child welfare, and more.
Alumni List – The CDO maintains a list of Tulane alumni working in public interest. The list is found on Cris, in the Document Library.
Post-Graduate Public Interest Fellowships
Project-based Fellowships:
Equal Justice Works “Design Your-Own Fellowship”
Application deadline mid-September. For more information, please see their FAQ and EJW webinar on “How to Apply and Tips to Succeed."
Application deadline early December. This Fellowship allows applicants to submit a short prospectus, ahead of the application due date. Then, Justice Catalyst provides feedback on whether the proposed project is a good fit for the Fellowship, and where appropriate, provides specific suggestions for the final application.
Application deadline is historically early September.
Cohort Fellowships:
Application deadline is early October.
Women’s Law & Public Policy Fellowship Program
At Georgetown University Law Center: Application deadline is mid-November.
If/When/How, Reproductive Justice Fellowship
Application deadline is Fall 2025.
Fellowships open as funding is received. Several different types of fellowships are available, such as the Disaster Resilience Program and the Crime Victims Advocacy Program. Select “3Ls & Graduates” to explore the options.
Organizational Fellowships:
The Legal Aid Society, Criminal Defense Practice Fellowship
Deadline is late June.
Institute for Justice, Litigation Fellowship 2026
Application opens in the Summer.
Southern Environmental Law Center, Glen D. Key Associate Attorney Fellowship
Applications open in August.
Zubrow Fellowship in Children’s Law
Deadline is mid-January. This is a 2-year fellowship at the Children’s Law Center in Philadelphia.
Firm-Sponsored Fellowships:
Fried Frank’s Civil Rights Fellowship
Deadline is early October. Fellows work at the firm for 2 years, then serve 2 more years as a staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in NY or the Mexican-American Legal Defense & Education Fund in LA.
Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger Fellowship
Deadline is September 1. This is a 3-year fellowship at a San Francisco law firm focused on environmental and land use law.
Entrepreneurial Fellowship:
2-year fellowship providing start-up capital for social innovators who develop an independent and autonomous project in a public service area, focused on work in the United States and around the world. The application is not currently open; in previous years, the application opened in mid-September and closed mid-October.
Every effort is made to list up-to-date deadlines; however, deadlines change annually so please independently confirm.
Job Settings for Public Interest Work
Public interest includes many different issues and practice settings. Below are the major types of public interest practice settings:
- Civil Legal Aid/Direct Services Offices: Provides civil legal aid to individuals who cannot afford an attorney. Areas of practice commonly include: housing, family, consumer, public benefits, immigration, labor, employment, and education law. Some offices specialize in several practice areas, while others focus exclusively on one area.
- Public Defenders: Provide representation to indigent defendants in criminal cases. Includes representation of juveniles.
- Law Reform/Policy Organizations: These organizations focus on law reform efforts in one or more specialty areas, or advocate on behalf of a particular group of people. Examples include the ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc., Earthjustice Legal Defense, etc.
- Public Interest Law Firms: Often small law firms specializing in one or more public interest law areas (employment discrimination, labor law, environmental, family law, immigration, education advocacy, civil rights, etc.) or working with an underrepresented group.
- International Public Interest Work: The type of work in international public service varies widely as do the settings in which attorneys practice, ranging from the State Department to nonprofits in the U.S. and abroad. Most international employers require proficiency in at least one foreign language.
Tulane's Loan Repayment Assistance Program
Tulane’s loan repayment assistance program can be a significant economic incentive for students who opt to pursue certain public service careers. The program helps eligible graduates pay off a portion of their law school educational loans for a specified period of time. As the program is currently structured, graduates are eligible to apply for loan repayment assistance benefits if they: (a) earn less than a specified annual amount and (b) work full-time as lawyers for certain types of public interest legal service organizations. The program requires that eligible graduates devote a certain percentage of their income toward repayment of non-family law school loans. Tulane Law School reimburses students for their loan repayments above this amount for up to five years.
In addition, Tulane has received a grant from the Kendall Vick Foundation to provide loan repayment assistance to individuals pursuing public service work, including government employment, in the state of Louisiana. The federal College Cost Reduction Act of 2007, which went into effect in 2009, also provides income-based repayment and loan forgiveness options to individuals pursuing public service employment.
