Summer Associate Jobs

Accepting 1L, 2L, and those starting in the spring semester.

Please read the entire project descriptions detailed HERE:

Dates: May 22 through July 28th, 2023.

Community Legal Aid's Summer Associate Program provides law students an immersive, hands-on experience in civil law. Summer Associates will work in different areas of the law and may expect to interview clients, draft client letters, draft court pleadings, research relevant legal issues, attend and assist with court hearings, assist with discovery, analyze evidence, and complete various other tasks as assigned.

All Summer Associates will receive training in substantive areas of poverty law and may observe court hearings. Other professional development opportunities, such as brown bag lunches, may be available for Summer Associates to meet with judges, attorneys, leaders of local non-profit agencies, and other community members.

Project name: Health Education Advocacy and Law (HEAL) Project

Project description: The HEAL Pro ject finds solutions to non-medical barriers that keep people from being healthy. Through medical-legal partnerships, community collaborations, and policy advocacy, project staff provide holistic legal services to improve disparate health and learning outcomes related to students with special learning needs, infant and maternal health, and chronic disease. Activities for the role: The HEAL summer associate, under supervision, will manage a small caseload of clients, with patients referred through medical-legal partnerships with local hospitals, infant vitality hubs, and other community partners.

Project name: Neighborhood Law Project (NLP)

Project description: The Neighborhood Law Project promotes economic development in historically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Project staff provide legal advocacy, expertise, and support to strengthen grassroots efforts in expanding social justice and racial equity, empowering disinvested communities, and building coalitions for positive social change. Activities for the role: The NLP summer associate will gain hands-on experience with community organizing and grass roots advocacy. The summer associate will support the project and can expect to engage in one of the two following project focus areas:

Focus 1: Tenant Unions: Low-income tenants have the right to organize and form Tenant Unions. CLAS is committed to helping organize and represent those unions. This work will focus on current organizing efforts to expand in multi-unit properties by canvassing in those areas, setting up organizing meetings, assisting with the drafting of by-laws and structure and providing legal assistance to those groups related to addressing poor housing conditions, tenant rights and being responsive to their concerns.

Focus 2: Community Economic Development: The NLP team is working to assist small business start-ups and community organizations that promote economic growth and food justice. This work will focus on assisting these groups and start-ups to increase opportunities for the low-income and marginalized communities.

Project name: The Parenting Time Project

Project description: Community Legal Aid believes that parents have a critical role to play in raising and supporting their children. Our Parenting Project is dedicated to reducing disparities in visitation for noncustodial parents, especially for Black fathers, through legal education, support, and direct representation. Activities for the role: The Parenting Project summer associate will be assigned an attorney with an ongoing caseload and will have direct interaction with clients and will gain valuable litigation experience.

Project name: Pro Bono Bankruptcy Project

Project description: The Pro Bono Bankruptcy Project, offered through Legal Aid’s Volunteer Legal Services Program, expands the organization’s capacity for protecting the legal rights of working class and low-income people. Through partnerships with private attorneys, law firms, and corporate counsel offices, project staff support volunteer attorneys who provide legal services pro bono, or “for the public good.” Activities for the role: The Pro Bono Bankruptcy Project summer associate will gain an understanding of Chapter 7 bankruptcy law and basic lawyering skills involved in working with clients in a pro bono setting.

Project name: Pro Bono General Practice Project

Project description: The Pro Bono General Practice Project, offered through Legal Aid’s Volunteer Legal Services Program, expands the organization’s capacity for protecting the legal rights of working class and low-income people. Through partnerships with private attorneys, law firms, and corporate counsel offices, project staff support volunteer attorneys who provide legal services pro bono, or “for the public good.” Activities for the role: The Pro Bono General Practice Project summer associate will receive hands-on experience working with both clients and private practice attorneys in a pro bono, legal aid setting.

Project name: Immigrants and Refugees Project

Project description: The Immigrants and Refugees Project ensures that new Americans have equal access to the civil justice system as they enrich our culture and economy. Project staff aim to provide holistic legal services for immigrants and refugees facing housing, financial, family, employment, or education barriers that keep them from thriving. Activities for the role: The Immigrants and Refugees Project summer associate will gain valuable experience working with clients seeking naturalization, as well as supporting initial or renewal applications for spousal “green cards.”

Project name: Housing Litigation

Project description: The Housing Litigation summer associate will support the Tenant Assistance Project and Homeownership Project:

The Tenant Assistance Project ensures low-income renters have safe, stable, and affordable places to live. Project staff work directly with renters to maintain their home, improve their living conditions, and assert their rights in eviction proceedings. The project’s primary focus in 2023 is representing tenants in eviction proceedings and creating safe and affordable housing. Project staff also are working on structural advocacy around right-to-counsel in eviction cases and sealing of past eviction cases.

The Homeownership Project supports Community Legal Aid's mission by ensuring low-income homeowners have safe, stable, and affordable places to live. Project staff work directly with homeowners facing foreclosure to save their home, improve their financial situation, and assert their rights in foreclosure proceedings. Activities for the role: The Housing Litigation summer associate will work closely with an attorney with an ongoing caseload and will gain valuable, real-world litigation experience while helping to develop systemic impact litigation and projects.

Project name: Court Debt Collection Project

Project description: The Court Debt Collection Project addresses the systemic issue of inequitable treatment of low-income individuals within municipal court systems, where a reliance on court fines and fees to fund basic government operations works against the goal of rehabilitation and creates a major barrier to people reentering society after a conviction.

It is through this lens that a Summer Associate will be working to eradicate this unethical occurrence and to meaningfully acknowledge this societal practices burden on minority populations. Activities for the role: The Court Debt Collection summer associate will gain valuable insight and experience through research compiled online, through direct phone calls and personal meetings with court personnel, in-person audits of hearings, and assisting staff attorneys in conducting hearings.

Project name: Advocating for Returning Citizens (ARC)

Project description: The ARC Project promotes a fresh and equitable start for returning citizens. Project staff assist residents reentering society by removing barriers to employment and housing, including criminal record sealing and certificates for qualifications for employment. Activities for the role: The ARC summer associate will work with the ARC team to represent clients with re-entry cases and draft a statewide resource for advocate use in record-sealing and certificates of qualification for employment.

Project Name: Legal Assistance to Victims (LAV)

Project description: The Legal Assistance to Victims Project assists survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking, and stalking find safety and independence. The project provides holistic legal services for victims and vulnerable children to help them gain protection from physical, mental, and financial abuse. Project staff work collaboratively with domestic violence shelters sexual assault service providers in the region to coordinate services to survivors and offer two day-long conferences each year for shelter advocates, social workers, law enforcement, prosecutors, members of the judiciary, private attorneys, and legal aid staff. Activities for the role: The LAV summer associate will be assigned an attorney with an ongoing caseload and will have direct interaction with clients.

Project Name: Public Benefits Project

Project description: The Public Benefits Project promotes economic justice for working class and low-income residents. Project staff provide direct legal services to help clients obtain or maintain unemployment compensation, federal and state government benefits, including social security, disability, food and cash assistance, and Medicaid. Activities for the role: The Public Benefits summer associate will gain valuable insight and skills through direct interaction with clients.

Project Name: Systemic Advocacy/Impact Litigation

Project description: This position is ideal for a law student who wants to be exposed to multiple areas of the law and has an interest in doing systemic legal work and complex litigation. Activities for the role: The summer associate can expect to engage in the following activities:

• Conduct in-depth legal, policy, and statistical research that will support systemic litigation and advocacy efforts in multiple areas of the law, including housing, family, education, consumer, immigration, and tax
• Conduct factual investigations including interviewing clients, requesting and reviewing client, court, and other relevant documents, and reviewing dockets and other public records
• Other duties as needed
• Draft pleadings, discovery policy comments, research memoranda, and correspondence
• Attend strategy, project, and practice group meetings, client clinics, and court hearings

# of positions: 2 (Warren, Akron)

Project name: Debt Relief

Project description: The Debt Relief Project supports Community Legal Aid's mission by giving people a fresh financial start. Project staff assist residents in reducing or eliminating debt, including consumer, medical, utility, and student loans, as well as helping consumers assert their rights in debt collection and garnishment matters. Summer associates will gain an understanding of Chapter 7 bankruptcy law and basic lawyering skills involved in working with clients in a professional setting.

Activities for the role: Interview clients requesting bankruptcy assistance and do public records research to complement intake interviews; draft client specific advice letters to provide clients with advice regarding their options; prepare at least one bankruptcy petition; attend at least one 341 bankruptcy hearing, attend and observe at least one call day at bankruptcy court; assisting in the preparation of a bankruptcy CLE; and attend the annual bankruptcy CLE at the Akron Bar Association and may be invited to be a speaker at the CLE (providing a 5-minute overview of the work they do on the project for volunteer attorneys.)

Practice Group: Education Practice Group

Group description: The Education Practice Group works on finding solutions to educational barriers that keep children from obtaining positive educational outcomes. Through community partnerships and collaborations, as well as policy advocacy, the Group works on providing holistic legal services to improve disparate learning outcomes related to students with special learning needs.

Activities for the role: The Education Practice Group summer associate, under supervision, will support the Practice Group and can expect to engage in the following activities:

• Conduct factual investigations including interviewing clients; requesting and reviewing medical, school, and other records; searching public records, etc.
• Conduct legal and policy research
• Such other tasks as may be assigned
• Attend education and housing hearings, community meetings, and outreach events
• Draft pleadings / research memoranda / policy papers / correspondence
• Other duties as assigned

Preferred qualifications: The strongest candidates will have the following qualifications:

• Ability to speak a foreign language is highly desirable
• Demonstrated interest in and sensitivity to the legal needs of the poor as well as motivation to improve the condition of the poor
• Interest and experience in health law and/or policy issues
• Interest and experience in education law and/or policy issues
• Awareness of racial education disparities, institutional racism, and systemic racism
• Having taken and education or school law course ad/or a strong interest in education law

Number of open positions: 1 (Akron or Youngstown)

Preferred qualifications: The strongest candidates will have the following qualifications:

• Strong research/writing background
• Strong research/writing skills
• Strong interest for students with their Intern Certificate
• Personal attributes: Successful candidates will possess the following characteristics:
• Demonstrated interest in and sensitivity to the legal needs of the poor as well as motivation to improve the condition of the poor
• Proficient in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and legal and internet research tools
• Interest or background in poverty law and/or bankruptcy law is helpful, but not required
• No prior bankruptcy, evidence, litigation or research and writing experience is needed
• Ability to speak a foreign language is highly desirable

Self-motivated and able to work on their own and as part of a team

• Ability to relate to and work with both professionals and clients in a professional manner
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Strong analytical and organizational skills
• First-rate oral and written communications skills
• Ability to follow directions
• High dependability