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Wondering about the relative prestige of a 1L summer with the ACLU national office vs. the Bronx Defenders. I'm under the impression that a summer with ACLU national would be a huge boost to any public interest resume. Is this correct or am I giving them too much credit?

As a future PD I know that BxD would provide more on point WE and if I ended up going to the ACLU I would extern with BxD next year.

Curious to your feedback, thanks

If you know that you're going to extern/intern with BxDefenders in the future, ACLU may not be a bad choice. Do you know which division of the ACLU you'd be assigned? While BxDefenders may be more on point, the ACLU experience will demonstrate an interest in protection of Constitutional rights.

I'd do ACLU then BxDefenders/LAS later, if nothing else, then because ACLU internships tend to be more rare than BxD and/or LAS.

1L summer jobs aren't prestigious. HTH.

do whatever youre interested in

I interned with the ACLU Washington Legislative Office my 2l summer. I actually thought it would be a lot more prestigious than it was. When I told people what i was doing, I got impressed answers. However, it didn't seem to help a ton with the job hunt. People think it's interesting, but they didn't throw jobs at me. That said, It does show a dedication to the public interest. And honestly, I loved every single minute of my internship, met amazing, brilliant people and learned a ton. I highly, highly suggest the ACLU if you are lucky enough to have the opportunity.

Just wondering if you've heard back from the ACLU about applications or if this is still in the wishful thinking phase?

Do you want to be a PD? If so, working at ACLU would be dumb.

Nelson wrote:Do you want to be a PD? If so, working at ACLU would be dumb.

There are a lot of jobs for which ACLU will work against you (even if just by announcing enough for the employer to infer your political bent), but I didn't ever consider that PD would be such a job. I'd be interested to hear your reasoning/experience.

BVest wrote:

Nelson wrote:Do you want to be a PD? If so, working at ACLU would be dumb.

There are a lot of jobs for which ACLU will work against you (even if just by announcing enough for the employer to infer your political bent), but I didn't ever consider that PD would be such a job. I'd be interested to hear your reasoning/experience.

It's not that the ACLU is bad, it's that it's not PD work. PDs value PD experience and it's a small community. ACLU work does nothing to get you trial skills or make connections with PDs. Bronx is one of the best PD organizations in the country and a great place to do both of those things.

Nelson wrote:

BVest wrote:

Nelson wrote:Do you want to be a PD? If so, working at ACLU would be dumb.

There are a lot of jobs for which ACLU will work against you (even if just by announcing enough for the employer to infer your political bent), but I didn't ever consider that PD would be such a job. I'd be interested to hear your reasoning/experience.

It's not that the ACLU is bad, it's that it's not PD work. PDs value PD experience and it's a small community. ACLU work does nothing to get you trial skills or make connections with PDs. Bronx is one of the best PD organizations in the country and a great place to do both of those things.

Fair enough. I didn't get that you meant ACLU over BxD.

Both would be great 1L summer internship opportunities. However, if you plan on doing public defense, I'd recommend doing the ACLU internship as a 1L and BxD later on (either 2L summer or as a 3L externship).

My reasoning: an ACLU internship in the NYC office is a great way to meet a whole lot of law students and attorneys across a wide variety of practice areas, and you won't be significantly disadvantaged as a 1L since the work is heavily focused on research and writing. I think you may find it harder to get involved in interesting, hands-on work at BXD as a 1L, whereas as a 2L or 3L you can probably hustle your way into doing more fun stuff like motion writing, etc.

Either way, both will be super fun, and I'd highly recommend either!

Thanks everyone. I ended up accepting the ACLU position. Anyone else gonna be there?

I do want to do PD work in the future. Re: doing non-PD work, I do have a pre-law school experience in elite PD investigations. I ended up making a deal with BxD to do an externship there my 2L spring semester. I told them I wanted to use this summer to bolster my research and writing skills before returning to the PD track. Do you think I will get more substantive work at BxD 2L spring > 1L summer? NY Practice Order something something..

Mind posting your school/rank/WE? I'm a fellow 1L vaguely hoping to hear back on a few ACLU positions and wondering if I'm out of my league.

I spent 1L summer at a criminal justice reform and capital appeals office, interned at a PD during 2L year, spent 2L summer at a PD, am doing a criminal defense clinic now, and just received a post-grad PD job. You have nothing to worry about re: your competitiveness for PD jobs as long as you get some PD experience during the rest of law school, which it sounds like you'll already be getting at BXD. Moreover, if you were able to get both of these internship offers you obviously have the dedication to civil liberties and public defense that's so important to getting PD jobs. You may have to answer some PD interview questions like, "Don't you think you could make a bigger difference by working at the ACLU?", but I'm sure you can develop a narrative for why you wanted to try that work but are now committed to being a PD.