Intern, Housing Law Unit

Position Description Legal Aid DC, a nonprofit organization with an approximately $18 million annual budget and a staff of approximately 125 employees, is seeking a Summer Intern to join our Housing Law Unit.

Since 1932, Legal Aid has provided civil legal assistance to clients in individual cases and engaged in systemic reform. Currently, we provide individual representation in consumer law, domestic violence/family law, housing, public benefits, and immigration matters. We also help people with the collateral consequences of their involvement with the criminal justice system. From the experiences of our clients, we identify opportunities for law reform, public policy advocacy, and systemic impact and appellate litigation. Legal Aid also administers the DC Resource Bridge, a single access point for legal services in the District.

Legal Aid believes that meaningful pursuit of our anti-poverty mission requires an unwavering commitment to racial justice and equity. We aspire both to reflect the rich racial diversity of the communities we serve and to value, respect, and empower our staff and clients to be effective agents of change. For more information about Legal Aid please visit our website, www.LegalAidDC.org.

Our work is supported through public and private grants and private fundraising from individuals, law firms, and other contributors.

Interns at Legal Aid DC have the unique opportunity to receive substantive assignments that will have an immediate impact on our clients. This internship is for Summer 2027 and will be 10 weeks in duration. Summer interns should expect to work full-time (40 hours per week). Interns mainly work out of Legal Aid’s NW DC office, with the option to perform some work remotely if approved by their supervisor. Summer interns may be required to perform duties off site, and will be required to travel locally for summer programming events.

The summer term is from May 27th through August 6th.

The staff in our Housing Unit work at Legal Aid’s central office, our community office in Southeast DC, and our court-based office in the Landlord and Tenant Branch of the DC Superior Court. Staff work primarily on two projects: an Eviction Defense Project, which provides advice, brief services, and limited and extended representation to low-income tenants facing eviction or at risk of eviction; and an Affordable Housing Preservation Project, which seeks to preserve and expand safe and affordable housing for low-income District residents through building-wide legal representation. The intern will report to a staff attorney in the Housing unit.

Responsibilities Perform legal and factual research

Draft pleadings, motions, reasonable accommodation requests, client correspondence, and other forms of legal writing

Observe/shadow/take notes for court or administrative hearings

Conduct or assist intakes and follow up interviews with applicants

Assist with preparing for and conducting client meetings

Assist with hearing preparation, including drafting hearing outlines and preparing witnesses and exhibits

Assist with discovery process, including drafting requests and responses, gathering information from clients, and drafting correspondence or motions to compel discovery

Assist with L&T courthouse project

Attend housing unit meetings, skills workshops, Legal Aid staff meetings

Scholarship Funding Legal Aid DC can provide scholarship funding to ensure that summer law students receive no less than $6,440 per summer, including scholarships from the Lee Horton Memorial Scholarship for Aspiring Public Interest Lawyers.

Required Summer law students are required to apply for outside funding to fund their internships in order to receive supplemental scholarship funding. We will provide a scholarship of up to $6,440 to summer law school interns when:

They attend a school that does not provide funding OR they are not approved for at least $6,440 of funding from their schools

AND

They do not get funding from any other outside sources that gets them to total funding of $6,440 for the summer

Example: if a student receives $5,000 of outside funding, Legal Aid will pay them $1,440 in scholarship funding.

Students may waive funding if they are prohibited from receiving renumeration by their law school.