Many students who attend law school do so with the intention of becoming a "public interest" lawyer. The world of public interest law is extremely varied and, in fact, many people find it hard to agree on what constitutes public interest. We take the widest possible view of public interest to include direct service and advocacy organizations; federal, state, and local government agencies; politics; and prosecutors and public defenders.

Whatever your interest, the one thing you can count on in pursuing a public interest career is that it will not seem as easy as the process of applying to large law firms through on-campus interviewing. To be fair, applying for a private practice position any time before or after your 2L fall will not seem as easy as the on-campus interviewing process! Although we invite and welcome any public interest employers to participate in fall recruiting, this is just not how most public interest employers tend to hire.

How the Office of Career Services can help

Student support:

• Individual counseling and resources for current students and alumni
• Designated public interest counselor
• Assistance for student groups, including The Chicago Law Foundation and the Public Interest Law Society
• Post-graduation fellowship application assistance
• Programming throughout the year on a variety of public service job topics, including fellowships, government careers, and funding

Networking/job fairs/postings:

• Promotion of and participation in several other public service job fairs including The National Black Prosecutors Association Job Fair, Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office Prosecutorial Opportunities symposium, City of Chicago Legal Job Fair, and the Chicago Bar Association Young Lawyers Section Pro Bono and Community Service Volunteer Fair
• Funding to attend Equal Justice Works Conference & Career Fair
• Participation in the Midwest Public Interest Law Career Conference
• Chicago Area Law Schools Consortium's Public Service Employers Reception
• Alumni in Public Service mentors list (available through Chalk at https://chalk.uchicago.edu)
• Job postings through Symplicity
• Access to postings available by subscription in PSLawNet, the Government Honors and Internships Handbook, and Opportunities in Public Affairs

Resources:

• Membership with PSLawNet, including an online directory to public interest organizations and job postings
• On-line subscriptions access to the Government Honors and Internships Handbook and Opportunities in Public Affairs
• Numerous books and directories relating to public service careers
• Each student receives a copy of Harvard's Public Interest Job Search Guide

Timing of the public interest job search

For your first summer job, you should expect a long process. Some public interest employers will be willing to interview you over the winter break – especially if you are traveling for the holiday and the office in which you are interested is on the route of your travel. Public interest employers cannot pay for you to travel for interviews, so they tend to be very sensitive to keeping the costs down for you as much as possible. Other employers will still be considering second-year candidates at that time, and will not be ready to speak to first year candidates, often those employers will be willing to wait until spring break to interview first year students. Some students will still be seeking public interest employment until late May or early June. Don't give up, OCS receives job postings all the way into June!

The fall of the second year is typically when private practice employers recruit for the following summer. You are of course welcome to participate in fall recruiting and secure a private practice position for all or part of your second summer, even if public interest is your ultimate goal. Some public interest students use the income opportunity of the second summer as a way to keep their overall law school debt down. Others obtain a private job in case they have difficulty obtaining their choice public interest job. Summer jobs in public interest tend to be highly competitive due to their scarcity – even unpaid positions can be hard to get, because public interest employers are not equipped to handle an inflow of 50 to 100 summer associates in the way that large law firms can.

Generally, all offers from fall recruiting have to be accepted or rejected by December 1st of the recruiting year. However, some firms will keep an offer open longer if you are seeking public interest employment and are still in the interviewing process.

One major difference between public interest and private practice employers is that public interest employers do not generally make permanent offers of employment following the second year summer. This is driven by the timing of their hiring budgets. Some public interest employers can afford to hire summer clerks every year, but cannot add new full-time lawyers every year.

Third year students generally have to apply throughout their third year for public interest positions and it is not unusual for public interest seeking students to still be looking in the summer following graduation. The search for a permanent public interest job generally happens in two waves. The first wave would be in the fall and consists of DOJ and other government honors program applications, applications for fellowships, and participation in the Equal Justice Works conference and career fair, and the Chicago Area Law Schools Consortium's Public Service Employers Reception. The second wave happens in the Winter and Spring Quarters, when many public interest organizations have their budgets in place for the upcoming fall. This process involves applying to job postings as they come in, networking with organizations that you have researched, and attending the Midwest Public Interest Law Career Conference.

To access current public interest job postings, please go to our web-based job posting system, Symplicity.com, as well as using PSLawNet and other available resources discussed above.