Public Service/Public Interest

The Law School is committed to training lawyers and scholars who are dedicated to the public good as well as professional excellence. While the institutional support which the Law School offers for students and graduates seeking public interest work is multifaceted, the common goal is to educate, inspire, and support present, former and future students in their efforts to pursue a career that incorporates a commitment to public service work.

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.