Come join the campaign to reclaim democracy for the people! Free Speech For People, a national nonpartisan nonprofit organization, was founded in 2010 after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC decision.  We’re working to renew our democracy and reclaim our Constitution for We the People, not big money and corporate interests, and to challenge President Trump’s unprecedented corruption and abuse of power. We’re accepting applications for 2020 summer internships in our Legal Advocacy Program.

What do we do? Here are some the highlights of our current major projects to push for a new jurisprudence to get big money out of politics, to fight for free and fair elections, to hold President Trump accountable for his unprecedented corruption and abuse of power, and to push back against corporations claiming constitutional rights to disregard federal, state, and local laws:

Ending super PACs and fighting foreign influence in U.S. elections. We’re leading Lieu v. FEC, a bipartisan federal lawsuit to end super PACs, supported by an all-star legal team that includes Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School and the former chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. We’ve also helped develop and pass cutting-edge campaign finance legislation in Seattle and St. Petersburg, Florida that will end super PACs in city elections and ban political spending by corporations partly owned by foreign investors.

Fighting for free and fair elections. We’re challenging the use of insecure and unreliable electronic voting machines in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and around the country. We’re also challenging unscrupulous practices by commercial voting machine vendors, and using public records litigation to find out how vendors have been influencing elections officials.

Leading the call for an impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump. We co-launched the national 1.47 million strong ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org campaign, which launched on Inauguration Day 2017 and has led the call for impeachment from day one.  And we’ve developed a comprehensive legal analysis of the grounds for launching immediate congressional impeachment hearings, set forth in our book The Constitution Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump, in our groundbreaking report When is racist abuse of office an impeachable offense?, and in our “Impeachment for the People” proposed articles of impeachment.

Fighting President Trump’s corruption and abuse of power in the courts and elsewhere. We’ve challenged as illegal President Trump’s pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the Trump EPA’s relaxation of a clean water rule as applied to Trump-owned golf courses, the Federal Election Commission’s dawdling in investigating a serious complaint of campaign finance violation by the Trump campaign, and the Trump Organization’s abuse of its state-granted corporate charter. We’ve already marked a victory through legal argument and public pressure that led to the end of an arrangement by which state public pension funds made unconstitutional payments to a Trump hotel.

Advancing new jurisprudence and thinking on the law of money in politics and corporate constitutional personhood. Through amicus briefs, research reports, and developing constitutional and corporate law scholarship, we help advance new thinking that will provide the foundations for new post-Citizens United ways of conceiving the roles of money, people, corporations, and the government in a democracy built on political equality and democratic self-government.

Advancing the constitutional amendment. We help lead the growing movement to amend the Constitution to overturn Citizens United and restore democratic governance. We’re a key legal resource for the amendment movement, and have pioneered new models of outreach.

Who are you? We’re looking for rising 2Ls or 3Ls who are dedicated to public interest work, write well, and can work in a nonprofit environment. Con Law (especially First Amendment) is a plus but not essential. In rare cases, we will also consider undergraduate internships.

What will you do? You might be researching cutting-edge impact litigation, or working on an amicus brief, or drafting legislation, or creating educational resources. Or something totally different. But you definitely won’t be doing doc review.

Where’s the office? Our legal office is in Newton, Massachusetts, just outside Boston.

When would the internship be? Our summer interns start in mid or late May and continue for up to 10 weeks. We can also consider part-time volunteers, at a minimum of two days per week for the whole summer, or on a fuller schedule but for shorter time. For part-time volunteers, remote work is also a possibility.

How do you apply? Send an email to internship (at) freespeechforpeople (dot) org with a few paragraphs about yourself and your interest, resume, law school transcript, writing sample, and contact info (email and phone) for two references. If you are not attending law school in the Boston area, please also include a note as to any connections to the area.

Compensation: Applicants must first seek funding through their law school internship or field placement programs, scholarships, or another third-party source. A limited stipend may be available in addition to school or other public interest funding.

Applications are accepted up through April 10, 2020, but we’ll select applicants on a rolling basis so apply soon.

Free Speech For People is an affirmative action employer and recruits, employs, retains, and promotes persons in a manner that does not discriminate against any person because of race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, age, veteran status, or physical or mental ability which is unrelated to job performance.