Position Description

2012-2013 Public Interest Environmental Law Fellowship

The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) announces its annual fellowship for an outstanding recent law school graduate.

The Institute: ELI en visions a healthy environment, prosperous economies, and vibrant communities founded on just law and policy. To this end, we develop creative and practical law and policy solutions to enable leaders across borders and sectors to achieve environmental, social, and economic progress. ELI builds the skills and capacity of tomorrow’s leaders and institutions; researches and analyzes complex, pressing environmental challenges; promotes and disseminates the best thinking through dialogue and print and electronic media; and convenes people with diverse perspectives to enhance understanding through debate. ELI works with partners across the United States and around the world. We are independent and non-partisan.

The Position: The law fellowship program is a longstanding component of ELI’s Research and Policy Division. The law fellow works closely with ELI attorneys and other professionals, including ELI’s international partners, to advance environmental protection by analyzing existing legal tools, developing new ones, and crafting innovative approaches to implementation. This may require considering how environmental protection is affected by other laws and policies that are related to environmental laws—e.g., those governing energy, taxation, and land use. Assignments include legal research and writing tasks across all ELI project areas, and the law fellow may be asked to make public presentations and assist in facilitating training activities. The law fellow is expected to assume significant responsibility.

Qualifications: The fellowship hiring process is rigorous and highly competitive. Applicants must have a top academic record and possess superior legal research and writing skills. Law review experience is preferred; foreign language skills are a plus. The fellowship will be awarded to a 2012 law school graduate, or to a candidate who has graduated recently (judicial law clerks are invited to apply). The one-year position begins in September 2012.

Salary: Approximately $35,000, with excellent benefits.

To Apply: Email an application package to ELI at lawfellowship@eli.org (reference position #110715 in the subject line). To be considered, your submission must include each of the following items, appended as one or more attachments to the email: (1) a completed “ELI Application for Employment,” available at http://www.eli.org/About/employment.cfm; (2) a cover letter; (3) a current resume; (4) a law school transcript; (5) a list of three professional references; and (6) a writing sample of approximately ten (but no more than 15) pages.

Applications must be submitted no later than 11:59 pm EST on Friday, December 9, 2011. You must submit your application by email; ELI is unable to consider applications submitted by fax, USPS or other shipping service, or hand delivery. No phone calls, please.

The Environmental Law Institute is strongly committed to providing equal employment opportunity and to achieving an inclusive, diverse workplace that values every individual. Minority candidates are encouraged to apply.