Alumna Connie Chung

EJF stipends helped Georgetown Law alumna Connie Chung pursue a career in public interest law in law school and beyond. Here she shares her experiences:

When I started law school, I was interested in international human rights work. So for my 1L summer, I received an EJF grant to work in Durban, South Africa, at the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD). ACCORD is a human rights NGO promoting peace and sustainability throughout the African continent through dispute resolution and peacekeeping methods. I studied about the various conflicts in Africa and published an article on the civil war in Sierra Leone. I also attended a peacekeeping conference in Harare, Zimbabwe, with mid-level UN officers and other human rights workers. Not only did I learn a great deal about the civil conflicts in Africa, but I got to travel around Africa for two months.


Above- Connie working at ACCORD in South Africa

The next year, I wanted to try my hand at civil rights and impact litigation. Through my 2L EJF grant, I got to work on employment discrimination cases at the Employment Law Center (ELC) in San Francisco. Two of ELC’s cases were coming before the US Supreme Court that fall, so I spent much of the summer working on the oral arguments. In addition, I successfully represented a client—a single father with two children—in his unemployment insurance hearing.

These summer internships helped me land a permanent position after law school at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, where I worked on cases involving post-9/11 religious and racial profiling, police accountability, reproductive rights, and the First Amendment. I then moved to Los Angeles where I worked on housing discrimination cases at the Housing Rights Center (HRC). At HRC, I first-chaired my own cases in state and federal court, and argued my first case before the Ninth Circuit.

There were times in law school when I doubted whether I’d made the right decision to pursue public interest law, but my EJF summers reminded me why this was the right career path for me. Now I’m looking at changing jobs again, but I know the experiences I had during my EJF summers will help me land a new job, just like they’ve done so far.

San Diego Coastkeeper

Pete Amaro shares his experiences:

Hello from California! I have been working for the summer as a legal intern at San Diego Coastkeeper, an environmental nonprofit working to protect San Diego’s beaches and watersheds through water-quality monitoring programs, public outreach, and legal advocacy. Coastkeeper is a part of Waterkeeper Alliance, an umbrella group with 179 member organizations worldwide.
Most of my tasks as a legal intern have involved stormwater and wastewater issues. I began my summer by creating a database of stormwater-related ordinances for all the municipalities and public agencies in San Diego County. Coastkeeper hopes that a centralized collection of various municipal codes will simplify its monitoring and enforcement work, as well as encourage updating stormwater codes throughout the county (they range from detailed and stringent in larger coastal cities to skeletal in smaller inland suburbs.) I have also had the opportunity to do field investigations: along with another legal intern, I surveyed targeted businesses in the city of Chula Vista to look for violations of both stormwater codes and industrial NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permits. We reported potential violations to the city’s stormwater hotlines, allowing Coastkeeper to also ensure proper compliance and follow-through by city officials.


I have also been working on Coastkeeper’s campaign on IPR (indirect potable reuse), a water recycling method popularly referred to as “toilet-to-tap.” The mayor of San Diego has resisted efforts by the City Council to implement a pilot project, and as a result, Coastkeeper has mounted an aggressive campaign to both sway the mayor and shift public opinion, which currently discounts water recycling in favor of desalination projects. I have done research to counter the city’s claims regarding the technical and financial infeasibility of an IPR project, and in June toured a facility in Orange County that recently began converting treated wastewater into drinking water. I was able to sample the finished product, and am happy to report that I am still alive and well.
This week brings an exciting opportunity to testify before the California Coastal Commission during their three days of meetings in Oceanside. I will speak in support of a staff report recommending denial of a proposed bayfront development in Monterey. This testimony, in addition to my other projects, has allowed me to become quite familiar with California’s complex environmental regulatory system; as I plan on returning home to California after graduation, I am especially grateful for the opportunity to begin refining my knowledge of California’s environmental legal framework.

Earthjustice International

Rania Rampersad writes from California:

After interning in a United Nations refugee camp in Kenya last summer (an internship that was also funded by EJF), I realized how difficult it is to help refugees once they have experiences the violence and trauma of war and displacement. I decided I wanted to do something to prevent people from becoming refugees in the first place. Many experts believe that climate change could cause as many as 200 million refugees by the year 2050, so I decided that focusing on prevention of climate change would be a great way to make a long term difference for a lot of people.

Working at Earthjustice International in Oakland, CA has turned out to be a fantastic summer experience! This organization is well known for their groundbreaking work on human rights and climate change. For example, they helped bring a petition on behalf of the Inuit people to an international commission regarding human rights violations caused by climate change. It was wonderful to spend the summer working on such cutting-edge legal issues. It was also a great learning experience to be able to work on a large variety of writing tasks, including a brief for litigation with the EPA, a policy paper for a United Nations Committee, and a memo evaluating potential international environmental claims.

The best part was being able to utilize the insights I acquired last summer working for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Because of this past experience, I was able to share my knowledge of the international refugee assistance process to inform our policy report’s discussion of climate change refugees here at Earthjustice International. My supervisors’ willingness to solicit my opinions and include me in discussions was a welcome surprise and reminded me why I love working for non-profit organizations.

The Equal Justice Foundation has given me two invaluable experiences that will help me to start my career in public service with direction, commitment, and the knowledge that it is possible to make a difference, even before you graduate!

Los Angeles District Attorney's Office

Colleen Dixon writes from sunny California:

For my summer internship made possible by my EJF summer stipend, I am working in Los Angeles at the U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California. There are fifteen summer "externs" from law schools including NYU, Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, and USC. After a few days of orientation, the extern coordinators assigned us to different sections within the office and paired us with Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) mentors. I was assigned to the National Security section. Because of security precautions, I cannot go into detail about my specific assignments. Overall, the work has been interesting and substantive.
Most extern assignments include research, drafting motions, writing memos, preparing evidence exhibits, and observing trials. In addition to work, the office arranged for the externs to tour the federal prison in Los Angeles, which holds individuals awaiting trial and awaiting transfer to other federal prisons. The prison is nine stories high with prisoners on most floors, which range from minimum to high security. We toured the woman's floor that holds eighty-five prisoners as well as two minimum-security male floors. We also viewed the law library, which is expected to receive Lexis and Westlaw access in the next year.
So far, my experience has exceeded my expectations. From the intelligent, friendly, and outgoing AUSA's to the intellectually challenging work, my externship is ideal. Because my internship is unpaid, the EJF grant made it possible for me to accept my summer externship. Without EJF funding, I would not be able to further my own career goal—working in public service, specifically at the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's office.