Serving Clients in the Second Circuit and the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York
Summer Internship for Law Students
The Federal Defenders of New York are proud to announce our summer 2025 internship program. Our Manhattan and Brooklyn offices each hire between 8 to 10 law students as interns for a 10-week program. We will consider students who have completed either their first or second year of law school.
Summer interns assist our trial and appellate attorneys to defend indigent clients in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. Interns work closely with our team of attorneys, social workers, paralegals, and investigators. They are trusted with substantive assignments to help our clients including researching legal questions, drafting briefs, conducting field investigations & client interviews, and participating in court hearings and trials. FDNY offers law students a unique and up-close opportunity to fight for our clients and learn about the federal criminal process in a friendly and collegial environment. We are invested in the success of our interns and committed to mentoring and supporting them to become the next generation of public defenders.
FDNY is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to ensuring a diverse, inclusive, and supportive office. We strongly encourage applications from all students wishing to fight for indigent clients accused of federal crimes, and especially from people of color, those personally affected by the criminal justice system, and other marginalized communities. We recruit interns from a variety of local and national law schools. Past interns have obtained post-graduate clerkships with judges in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the Second Circuit, as well as other courts throughout the country. Many then go on to become public defenders.
Law students interested in a summer position should submit a cover letter, resume, transcript (if available), and writing sample starting on September 1, 2024. Please combine all of these materials into a single PDF titled as lastname.firstname.FDNYsummer2025. We hire on a rolling basis, but we generally interview rising 3L applicants in September and October and rising 2L applicants in December and January so we encourage applicants to get their materials in early. We will respond only to those applicants selected for an interview.
For those interested in the Manhattan office, applications and inquiries should be directed to Ian Marcus Amelkin, 52 Duane Street, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10007 (tel.: 212-417-8733; e-mail: ian_marcus_amelkin@fd.org). For those interested in the Brooklyn office, applications should apply to at this link, and inquiries should be directed to Karume James and Jeff Dahlberg, One Pierrepont Plaza, 16th Floor, 300 Cadman Plaza West, Brooklyn, NY 11201 (tel: (718) 330-1200; e-mail: Karume_james@fd.org or Jeff_Dahlberg@fd.org).