Equal Justice Works recently announced that the AmeriCorps JD program (formerly known as the Equal Justice Works Summer Corps) will now be available for term-time internships as well as for summer public interest work. This AmeriCorps-funded program provides law students with the opportunity to earn a Segal AmeriCorps Education Award, a $1,175 voucher that can be used to pay educational expenses or loans.
The program includes three corps covering three areas of work: Veterans Legal Corps, Disaster Legal Corps, and Civil Legal Corps. Students may work at nonprofit organizations serving veterans, military families, homeowners facing foreclosure, victims of disaster, or organizations engaged in medical-legal partnerships; legal service organizations receiving funding from the Legal Services Corporation (LSC); or nonprofit civil rights organizations. Examples of qualifying organizations can be found here.
To be eligible, students must provide direct legal services to low-income and underserved individuals for 300 hours. This includes conducting intake, performing client and witness interviews, assisting with courtroom representation, and carrying out legal research and writing.
Applications for Summer 2014 are due on April 15. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. More information about the application process can be found here.
Note re: summer awards: Students who are paid more than $4300 for an internship are unfortunately not eligible for the Americorps JD program. For 1Ls who wish to combine a PILC-funded summer internship with Americorps JD, NYU can reduce your PILC funding to $4300 so that you can take advantage of both. If you are selected for the Americorps JD program, please email pilcgrant@exchange.law.nyu.edu to let us know. Because 2Ls would earn more with PILC-funding alone than if combined with Americorps JD, this program probably only makes sense for 2Ls who are doing term-time internships.