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 from law students interested in working as 2019 summer interns 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 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. 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 lawyers for Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. We’ve also helped develop and pass a cutting-edge campaign finance ordinance in St. Petersburg, Florida that will end super PACs in city elections.

Leading the call for an impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump. 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. And we co-lead the national 1.4 million strong ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org campaign, which launched on Inauguration Day 2017 and has led the charge with local government resolutions around the country.    

Fighting foreign influence in U.S. elections. Through the St. Petersburg ordinance, a similar ordinance now pending before the New York City Council, and two groundbreaking complaints currently pending before the Federal Election Commission, we’re using the tools of campaign finance law to fight foreign influence in our elections, whether directly or through corporate intermediaries.

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, 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? Interns are 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 [email protected] 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.

The internships are unpaid, but we will be happy to assist with paperwork if you apply for your school’s public interest funding program to help support you in this unpaid internship. We can also provide a monthly T (bus/subway) pass.

Applications are accepted up through April 12, 2019, 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.