ABA Center for Human Rights – Legal Fellow

The American Bar Association-Center for Human Rights is seeking a legal fellow for 2024 for its Justice Defenders Program.

The Justice Defenders Program provides pro bono legal assistance to human rights advocates working in difficult environments and vulnerable circumstances by:

• Advising on, and raising public awareness of, sensitive trials and cases;
• Connecting pro bono lawyers with requisite expertise with local lawyers to provide advice on international law standards, share best practices, and assist in developing advocacy and litigation strategies; and
• Observing trials that have garnered local, regional, or international attention and/or have the potential of changing the law, for better or worse, within the country, and providing analysis of those trials.

The Justice Defenders Program’s global reach enables it to help human rights defenders in virtually any country. The Program is sensitive to varied political and factual circumstances and its assistance is tailored to realities “on the ground.” With experienced staff and a dynamic network of pro bono lawyers at the ready, the Program can respond rapidly to acute crises or take on long-term projects as needed.

Almost every year, the Justice Defenders Program partners with law schools to provide a one-year fellowship opportunity for a graduating or recently graduated law student to support the Program’s work on cases of human rights defenders at risk. This year’s fellowship will begin on or around September 1, 2024 and conclude on or around August 31, 2025.

The fellow will focus on cases of human rights defenders at risk across all five of our regions or thematic portfolios—Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, South and Southeast Asia, Europe and Eurasia, and Labor—through their work on the Justice Defenders program. Additionally, the fellow will support our Proxy Warfare project, researching whether gaps in the law have contributed to the adverse impacts of proxy warfare and any other research, writing, and advocacy efforts surrounding this specific project.

Essential Job Functions and Responsibilities

• Undertakes substantive legal work for a grant-funded project and/or provides substantive support and expertise to an assigned section
• May perform pro-bono assistance under the direction and supervision of a direct service host agency, if required by the grantor, through a collaborative arrangement with ABA entities.
• Provides substantive advice, information, and policy on a substantive area of law or public policy.
• Conducts research and meets with appropriate counterparts to develop memoranda, reports, technical analyses, and policy recommendations.
• Analyzes law, regulations, court rules, and policy proposals and synthesizes findings into appropriate reports/memoranda on law or public policy.
• Analyzes data and crafts meaningful and actionable presentations on legal and public policy issues. May advise on event planning, model documents and templates, and training methodologies intended to optimize data transfer and retention.
• May provide outside legal assistance and pro bono support to such entities such as legal aid or similarly situated group.
• Performs other related duties as required.

The Fellow will also be responsible for:
1) Undertaking substantive legal work for the Justice Defenders Program and providing substantive support and expertise to Staff Attorneys, working in a collaborative environment with ABA members, ABA staff, and other Fellows.
2) Case Management: The Fellow will assist regional staff attorney leads in vetting potential cases, conducting preliminary assessments of legal issues, and coordinating the provision of pro bono legal assistance to at-risk human rights defenders.
3) Research and Writing: The Fellow will conduct legal and other research and write memoranda, reports, articles and/or technical analyses, including for publication. The Fellow will analyze laws, regulations, policies, and court rules and provide substantive advice and information on potential cases.
4) Other duties as assigned: The Fellow will support regional staff attorneys in a range of duties relating to case strategy, management, advocacy and other matters regarding the execution of case work.
5) Advancing a technical or process innovation aimed at improving the provision of legal services internationally.
6) Contributing to the advancement of the Center’s goals.
7) Helping to brainstorm and advance assigned project(s).

Required Education, Qualifications, Experience:
Actively pursuing a Juris Doctorate from an ABA-accredited law school, with at least one year of law school completed.