National Employment Law Project

New York, NY

This is the 2025 fellowship description for this mentor organization. 

The National Employment Law Project (NELP) seeks two full-time law students for our 2025 summer legal internship program in New York City for ten weeks.

Who We Are

Founded in 1969, the nonprofit National Employment Law Project (NELP) is a leading advocacy organization with the mission to build a just and inclusive economy where all workers have expansive rights and thrive in good jobs. Together with local, state, and national partners, NELP advances its mission through transformative legal and policy solutions, research, capacity building, and communications. Our victories over the last decade have impacted the lives of an estimated 100 million workers and their families. We lead and collaborate in fights for higher pay and just benefits, secure and safe jobs, and support at each stage in a worker’s life. For more information, read our annual reports and explore our website: www.nelp.org

NELP has a team of 55 staff people based across offices in New York City, Washington D.C., and Berkeley, CA, with an 11-person Board of Directors, an annual budget of $17M-$20M, and hundreds of partners in the field with whom we work to further our mission.

What You Will Do

With a staff of lawyers, researchers, and policy experts, NELP works in close partnership with lawyers, grassroots organizing groups, and reformers to test new policy models in the states and cities and translate them to the federal level, and to enforce long-fought legal rights and protections, in order to respond to the key problems of the U.S. labor market in the twenty‐first century. Our work includes:

  • Developing new strategies to improve and ensure enforcement of basic workplace rights in order to combat the growing number of immigrant workers who are not paid the minimum wage or overtime, who endure unsafe workplaces, and who face retaliation when trying to organize.
  • Researching and developing policies to address the rise of outsourcing, the “gig economy,” and contingent work structures (“the fissured economy”) to ensure fair wages and job quality.
  • Researching and developing policies to address the needs of formerly-incarcerated individuals seeking access to good jobs;
  • Developing policies and providing campaign support to raise labor standards at the federal, state, and local levels, with a particular focus on supporting ongoing worker campaigns for $15 an hour and the right to unionize; fighting back against rollbacks at the federal level; and eliminating loopholes and waiver of rights that exclude immigrants, people of color, and contingent and temporary workers from core minimum wage protections.
  • Developing worker-centered strategies with a racial justice framework to improve state policies, build worker power, and improve jobless workers' access to unemployment insurance; and advocating for federal policies that will ensure all people have access to the social insurance programs they need.

The Peggy Browning Fellow will assist NELP attorneys in all aspects of this work, including:

  • Providing legal, policy and strategic assistance for campaigns, including drafting legislation, legal research and analyses, and policy briefs;
  • Strategic participation in litigation related to wage and hour and other labor standards issues, including drafting amicus briefs and preparing legal research memos;
  • Drafting reports, op-eds, and community educational materials and engaging in strategic communications.

Who You Are

  • You are a law student who is able to work full-time (35 hours per week) for 10 weeks.
  • You are committed and excited to focus on workers’ rights advocacy.  
  • You are committed to building your racial equity competencies; and you are continuously learning, reflecting, and growing.
  • You are self-aware, curious, and respectful with strong interpersonal skills fostering a sense of purpose and community and have high standards for holding yourself and others accountable.
  • You operate with a commitment to excellence, integrity, diplomacy, humility, and camaraderie.

Start Date, Payment, Funding, and Location:

Two full-time (35 hours per week) positions are based out of our New York City office. Each intern will receive $7,000 for the 10-week period. NELP has a hybrid model that requires you to work in-person at least six days per month. This hybrid model seeks to leverage both the benefits of working with colleagues in-person and the benefits of flexible remote arrangements. The start date will be in the Summer of 2025. 

The total ten-week stipend for this fellowship will be $7,000.

To Apply:

Applicants should submit the Peggy Browning basic application requirements. Students are encouraged to apply as early as possible.

Cathy Ruckelshaus
Legal Director & General Counsel
National Employment Law Project
90 Broad Street, Suite 1100
New York, NY 10004

www.nelp.org

NELP is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and an equal opportunity, fair chance, affirmative action employer, committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce.  All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, creed, national origin, sex, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, military status, prior record of arrest or conviction, citizenship status, current employment status, or caregiver status.