Legal Clerkship Program

The PDS law clerk program gives law students an opportunity to assist attorneys in all aspects of case preparation. PDS offers 30-50 law clerk positions each semester and 30-50 clerkships during the summer.

Law clerks perform legal research, draft motions, interview incarcerated and institutionalized clients, perform field investigation, represent juveniles in institutional disciplinary hearings, respond to inmate letters requesting legal assistance, attend discovery conferences, prepare pretrial motions, attend trials, parole hearings and appellate arguments and perform a wide range of research and case preparation duties.

Law clerks usually work with a single attorney in the Trial, Appellate, Mental Health, Special Litigation, or Parole Divisions, as well as our Civil Legal Services Unit and the Community Defender Program. While we prefer second and third-year law students, we also recruit many first-year students, especially for our Juvenile Services Program. In addition to very interesting and challenging work, during the summer we have a week long substantive training class and a lunchtime training series on a wide variety of topics. Most law clerks also work side-by-side with attorneys and investigators performing field investigation in addition to traditional legal research. While most law clerks simply volunteer their services, PDS law clerkships have been approved as part of independent study courses and Equal Justice Foundation (EJF) fellowships. Several DC law firms, including Crowell & Moring, Steptoe & Johnson, Miller & Chevalier, Swidler Berlin, and Shea & Gardner allow summer associates to split their summer and come to PDS for 4-5 weeks.

Although most clerkships are volunteer, PDS offers a very limited number of paid summer law clerkships ($15/hour) for law students who have:

  1. criminal defense or public interest experience (both legal and non-legal) and a strong desire to become a public defender;
  2. strong academic credentials and writing ability; and
  3. special skills that would greatly assist in improving our ability to meet the needs of our clients (e.g., paralegal certification, criminal defense investigation experience, sign language proficiency, Spanish fluency or experience working with indigent people in the justice system).

Law clerkships should be at least 15 hours per week during the academic year or a minimum of six weeks during the summer (the full program lasts 12 weeks).

To apply, please submit a cover letter, resume, law school transcript (if your transcript is not in a format that you can upload, please type a document that lists your law school classes, credit hours and grades earned), writing sample and a list of three references. Law clerk applications should be uploaded by January 25th by clicking here: Submit Application Now:

Semester term law clerk applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

We are now accepting applications for fall 2008 semester. Please follow the link below to apply:

Submit Application Now