Career Strategy

Work Settings

Public interest work takes place in various legal settings, including legal service and law reform organizations, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, private public interest law firms, and private law firms performing pro bono work. The following is a brief overview of typical jobs in public interest law. For further information, see Chapter One of the "Harvard Law School's Handbook: Public Interest Jobs Search Guide", available in the Career Strategy Office, or see the section on Resources on this website.

Public Interest Organizations

Public interest organizations come in all shapes and sizes. There are national organizations that represent a host of underrepresented individuals and groups, from the Sierra Club, which aims to protect the environment, to the National Organization for Women, which is a national voice for women's issues. There are also local public interest organizations, such as the SeniorLaw Center, which provides direct legal representation to senior citizens in Philadelphia, and Nationalities Services Center, which provides direct legal representation to immigrants. Some public interest organizations provide direct client representation, while others work toward changing public policy, in the hope that they will improve the lives of the many who will be affected by the public policy. The client-oriented organizations are usually non-profit law offices that concentrate on representing clients with problems in the office's area of specialization. Policy-oriented organizations usually use class action litigation or legislation to change policy in a specific area.

Legal services are not-for-profit community and neighborhood-based organizations that provide free civil direct legal assistance to low-income persons. The practice areas in each legal services office vary and can range from housing and social security to domestic violence, custody and support litigation.

Public defenders serve as court-appointed counsel for indigent persons in criminal cases.

Government jobs that serve the public interest are available at all levels of government in a wide range of subject areas. At the local level, cities, municipalities, counties and school districts all employ lawyers in various functions. At the state government level there are jobs in areas such as State Attorneys General offices, courts, consumer protection departments, public health offices, and state education departments. The federal government also offers opportunities in a wide range of subject areas from civil rights (U.S. Department of Justice) to immigration and refugee issues (U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service) to environmental (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) to labor and employment (U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Department of Justice, Equal Employment Opportunities Commission); the list goes on and on. Finally, international quasi-governing bodies also offer diverse public interest careers, ranging from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and U.N. Commission on Human Rights to the World Bank, the Organization of American States and other quasi-governmental organizations.

Non-governmental organizations range from scientific, professional and business organizations to international organizations and often deal with specialized issues such as the environment or public policy issues.

Back to the Top