Pro Bono Honors Pledge Program - Suggested Placements
Education Law
- Advancement Project
- American Association of University Women Legal Advocacy Fund
- American Bar Association Commission on Immigration
- American Library Association
- Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
- Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)
- Appleseed Center - DC Center
- Appleseed
- Center for Law and Education
- Center for Law and Social Policy
- Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
- Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
- Migrant Legal Action Program (MLAP)
- NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, Inc.
- National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty
- National Women's Law Center
- Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund
- Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School (TMA)
- University Legal Services
- Washington Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
- Women's Research and Education Institute
The Advancement Project (AP), a policy, communications and legal action group committed to racial justice, was founded by a team of veteran civil rights lawyers in 1998. Our mission is to develop, encourage, and widely disseminate innovative ideas, and pioneer models that inspire and mobilize a broad national racial justice movement to achieve universal opportunity and a just democracy. Advancement Project partners with community organizations, bringing them the tools of legal advocacy and strategic communications to dismantle structural exclusion. To implement our theory of change, Advancement Project continues to operate on two planes: locally, we provide direct, hands-on support for on-the-ground efforts; nationally, we actively broaden and extend the practice of community-centered racial justice lawyering through training, networking, creation of tools and resources, media outreach and public education. We also operate a communications department that, in partnership with allies, uses sophisticated strategies to raise awareness of racial and social inequities and generate public will for progressive and systemic change.
Contact: Alexi Nunn, Intern Coordinator, 202-728-9557 or anunn@advancementproject.org
American Association of University Women Legal Advocacy Fund
The AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund provides funding and a support system for women seeking judicial redress for sex discrimination. The AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund is the nation's largest legal fund focused solely on sex discrimination in higher education. Since 1981, the organization has helped students, faculty, staff, and administrators in higher education challenge discriminatory practices such as sexual harassment, denial of tenure or promotion, pay inequity, and inequality in women's athletics programs.
Contact: Lisa Mets, Intern Coordinator, 202-785-7750
http://www.aauw.org/advocacy/laf/
American Bar Association Commission on Immigration
The Commission directs Association efforts to ensure fair and unbiased treatment, and full due process rights, for immigrants and refugees within the United States. Acting in coordination with other Association entities, as well as governmental and non-governmental bodies, the Commission: advocates for appropriate statutory and regulatory modifications in law and governmental practice consistent with Association policy; provides continuing education and timely information about trends, court decisions and pertinent developments for members of the legal community, judges, affected individuals and the public; and develops and assists the on-going operation of pro bono programs that encourage volunteer lawyers to provide high quality, effective legal representation for individuals in immigration courts, with special emphasis on the needs of the most vulnerable immigrant and refugee populations.
Contact: Irena Lieberman, Staff Director, 202-662-1008 or Liebermi@staff.abanet.org
http://www.abanet.org/publicserv/immigration/home.html
The mission of the American Library Association is to provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.
Contact: Pat May, Director of Administration, 202-628-8410 or pmay@alawash.org
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/wo/wo.cfm
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
ASH is a nonprofit charitable trust primarily involved in advocacy in the area of nonsmokers’ rights. ASH cannot handle cases involving individual rights, but will sue government agencies to protect the rights of nonsmokers and provide testimony on such issues.
Contact: Velma Dessuit, Office Manager, 202-659-4310 or ashlegal@cs.net
Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)
ADA is the nation’s oldest, liberal, independent political organization. It focuses on economic, military, foreign, social, and environmental issues, and maintains a political action committee (ADA/PAC). It publishes a weekly legislative newsletter for liberal activists and a quarterly newsletter.
Contact: Valerie Dulk-Jacobs, 202-785-5980 or valeriedj@adaction.org
The DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice is a nonprofit organization dedicated to solving important public policy problems facing the Washington, DC metropolitan area. To advance this mission, DC Appleseed organizes volunteers, including attorneys and other experts, who work in teams to analyze and develop solutions to problems facing the region. Depending on the problem being addressed, DC Appleseed’s projects involve working with broad coalitions, issuing reports, participating in regulatory proceedings, bringing lawsuits, managing public education campaigns, and meeting with and/or testifying before governmental decision-makers. We are a local organization, working exclusively on a broad array of the biggest public policy problems facing the National Capital area, including healthcare, voting representation, education reform, environmental concerns, jobs, and housing.
Contact: Wayne Turner, 202-289-8007 ext.18 or wturner@dcappleseed.org
A non-profit network of 16 public interest justice centers in the U.S. and Mexico, Appleseed is dedicated to building a society in which opportunities are genuine, access to the law is universal and equal, and government advances the public interest. Appleseed uncovers and corrects injustices and barriers to opportunity through legal, legislative and market-based structural reform. Working with our huge pro bono network, we identify and examine social injustices, make specific recommendations, and advocate for effective solutions to deep-seated structural problems. Together, Appleseed and Appleseed Centers form a network for positive change, building a society that provides each individual access to justice and a genuine opportunity to lead a full and productive life.
Contact: Meredith Barnes Driscoll, Operations and Field Director, 202-347-7960 or mbarnes@appleseednetwork.org
http://www.appleseednetwork.org/
The Center engages in legal advocacy for the educational rights of low-income students and parents. The Center provides assistance to outside attorneys representing low-income students and parents.
Contact: Paul Weckstein, 202-986-3000 or pweckstein@cleweb.org
Center for Law and Social Policy
The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) is a national non-profit that works to improve the lives of low-income people. CLASP’s mission is to improve the economic security, educational and workforce prospects, and family stability of low-income parents, children, and youth and to secure equal justice for all.
Contact: Alan Houseman, 202-906-8001 or ahouse@clasp.org
Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
The mission of the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law is to protect and advance the rights of adults and children who have mental disabilities. The Center envisions an America where people who have mental illnesses or developmental disabilities exercise their own life choices and have access to the resources that enable them to participate fully in their communities.
Contact: Ira Burnim, 202-467-5730 ext.129
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
The Committee handles the full range of civil rights litigation with special focus on fair housing, equal employment opportunities, education, voting rights, and environmental justice.
Contact: Sarah Crawford, 202-662-8600 or scrawford@lawyerscomm.org
http://www.lawyerscommittee.org/
Migrant Legal Action Program (MLAP)
For more than 30 years, the Migrant Legal Action Program (MLAP) has provided legal representation and a national voice for migrant and seasonal farmworkers. MLAP works to enforce rights and to improve public policies affecting farmworkers' working and housing conditions, education, health, nutrition, and general welfare. The program works with an extensive network of local service providers, including organizations in the fields of migrant education, migrant health, job training, Head Start, and migrant legal services. MLAP staff provides technical assistance and training to these service providers, as well as undertaking high level policy advocacy at the state or local level. Students would undertake research and writing in support of the program's work.
Contact: Roger Rosenthal, 202-775-7780 or rrosenthal@mlap.org
NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, Inc.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) was founded in 1940 under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall. Although LDF's primary purpose was to provide legal assistance to poor African Americans, its work over the years has brought greater justice to all Americans.
Contact: Leslie M. Proll, 202-682-1300
National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty
The mission of the Law Center is to prevent and end homelessness by serving as the legal arm of the nationwide movement to end homelessness. To achieve its mission, the Law Center pursues three main strategies: impact litigation, policy advocacy, and public education.
Contact: Tulin Ozdeger, 202-638-2535 ext. 212 or tozdeger@nlchp.org
Since 1972, the Center has expanded the possibilities for women and girls in the U.S. The Center uses the law in all its forms: getting new laws on the books and enforced; litigating ground-breaking cases in state and federal courts all the way to the Supreme Court; and educating the public about ways to make the law and public policies work for women and their families. An experienced staff of nearly 50 takes on the issues that cut to the core of women's and girls' lives in education, employment, family economic security, and health -- with special attention given to the needs of low-income women and their families.
Contact: Amy Matsui, 202-588-5180 or humanresources@nwlc.org.
Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund
TAF's mission is both activist and educational. Established in 1986, TAF serves to: inform and educate the general public, the legal community, government officials, the media, and other interested groups about the False Claims Act and its qui tam provisions; contribute to understanding of the Act's nature, workings, and critical importance to the public interest; vigorously defend against any attempts to repeal or weaken the Act; facilitate meritorious qui tam suits; advance public and government support for qui tam; and document the Act’s public policy value, intellectual and legal foundation, and qui tam provisions.
Contact: Jeb White, 202-296-4826 or jwhite@taf.org
Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School (TMA)
Thurgood Marshall Academy is a law-related-education school that teaches at risk, low-income high school students from Southeast DC, for whom many have lost hope and considered "too late to save." TMA's mission is to prepare students to succeed in college and engage in our democratic society. They depend on dedicated volunteers to make their tutoring, mentoring, Law Day and enrichment programs possible.
Contact: Kymber Lovett, (202) 563-6862 x102 or volunteer@tmapchs.org
http://www.thurgoodmarshallacademy.org/
University Legal Services provides advocacy services for people with disabilities including litigation related to removing architectural barriers, special education litigation, advocacy for people living in facilities (such as St. Elizabeth’s, and group homes throughout the community), and services related to obtaining assistive technology to enable people with disabilities to perform tasks independently.
Contact: Jane Brown, 202-547-0198 or jbrown@uls-dc.org
Washington Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
The Committee handles a full range of civil rights litigation, focusing on equal employment opportunity, fair housing, police misconduct, public accommodations, immigrant and refugee rights, and disability rights.
Contact: Sarah Crawford, 202-783-0857 or scrawford@lawyerscomm.org
Women's Research and Education Institute
Since 1977, members of Congress have looked to the Women's Research & Education Institute for nonpartisan information and policy analysis on women's equity issues. Over the years, WREI's reputation as a source of reliable data and clear thinking about the status of American women has traveled far beyond the nation's Capitol. WREI's mission is to identify issues affecting women and their roles in the family, workplace, and public arena, and to inform and help shape the public policy debate on these issues.
Contact: Susan Scanlan, 202-628-0444
