The Institute

A collaboration between People’s Parity Project (PPP), the Systemic Justice Project (SJP), and the Justice Catalyst (JC) announces a COVID-19 Rapid Response/Systems Summer Institute, which will engage law students in full-time (or part-time) summer legal fellowships, working with legal and law-related organizations on the front lines of responding to the COVID-19 crisis. While working on urgent projects, fellows will also participate in additional educational and community-building programming.

Projects

Fellows will work individually or on teams on a variety of project types, including:

  • Direct client work (e.g., law-related work, such as staffing a helpline or assisting individuals with unemployment insurance forms)
  • Legal research/writing
  • Advocacy efforts

Supervision + Mentorship

Fellows will receive three tiers of supervision/mentorship:

  1. the Summer Institute Organizing Committee;
  2. the lawyers and members of partner organizations who provide projects and with whom fellows will work directly; and
  3. volunteer attorneys, who will devote a fixed number of hours per week supervising specific students/teams.

Programming + Community

The additional programming will be led by the Systemic Justice Project, and is designed to build community and provide participants a chance to share lessons, learn about different kinds of justice-oriented lawyering, compare different theories of change, examine deeper systemic problems revealed by the pandemic, and consider what opportunities the crisis might create for advancing long-term systemic change. It will include workshops with community organizers, social activists, justice-oriented lawyers, clinical faculty, and podium faculty from a variety of organizations and institutions.

Funding, Questions, and Sign Up!

We have secured limited funding to support this work, and also intend to qualify for summer public interest funding from law schools where possible.

Please email systemssummerinstitute@gmail.com with any questions. 

If you are a law student interested in participating either full time or part time, please complete this form: https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_78qGEWt1RhVEDqd