Opportunity for Fellowship Development

Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio (LASCO)’s mission is to provide civil legal aid and advocacy to overcome unfairness and injustice, reduce poverty, and increase opportunity. LASCO has a long-standing history of being committed to searching out the patterns, causes of, and solutions to the repetitive and fundamental legal problems facing low-income Ohioans and pursuing the legal recourse needed to address those problems. Since 1966, our organizations have helped thousands of Ohio’s poor obtain and keep housing, secure public benefits, worked with families to gain and maintain economic stability, and helped domestic violence survivors to live free of fear and abuse and to obtain the resources needed to sustain themselves and their children. 

Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio (LASCO) is pleased to offer opportunities to host two-year post-graduate public interest legal fellowships beginning in September 2025.

Rising 3L law students and recent law school graduates are encouraged to collaborate with LASCO in developing the fellowships. LASCO offers an invitation to help realize your ideas and projects that align with the goals and needs of the organization. If you have an idea or project you would like to explore, we are seeking candidates to support throughout the public interest legal fellowship development process. All proposal submissions will be reviewed and aligned projects will be selected to collaborate with LASCO this summer to prepare, submit, and navigate the fellowship application process. 

Over the past four years, LASCO has grown our work to serve a community increasingly diverse and increasingly built by immigrants and new Americans from countries around the globe. As such, we are specifically interested in candidates who will collaborate with us to craft proposals that build on our outreach and legal advocacy efforts to support these communities through projects that tackle the interconnections between civil legal services and immigration. Specifically, LASCO is especially interested in candidates looking to take on potential fellowship projects for work in the following areas and their intersections:

• Immigration
• Domestic and Family
• Public Benefits
• Housing

As an example, LASCO is interested in hosting a fellow to work on a project involving domestic/family law issues specifically impacting immigrants, public benefits issues impacting immigrants, and/or housing issues impacting immigrants. LASCO is open to alternate project ideas as well.

Proposal materials should include a cover letter describing your background, experience, and areas of interest for future work. This cover letter will serve as the basis for development of a full fellowship application proposal created in collaboration with LASCO attorneys. In addition to providing a cover letter, materials should include a resume, writing sample, and most recent (unofficial or official) transcript, as soon as possible and no later than July 7, 2024. Successful proposals will demonstrate interest in public interest law, strong academic records, excellent organization and communication skills, and the demonstrated ability to handle a demanding workload .

Proposals will be reviewed as received.  If selected, please be prepared to develop the fellowship project proposal in collaboration with LASCO staff during the summer of 2024, for submission to outside fellowship sponsors by early September 2024. Final selection of fellows is contingent on the funder of the fellowship’s selection of a candidate’s proposal and award of the funding. LASCO has successfully hosted numerous fellows in the past.

The development phase of the process is considered voluntary. Payment information is dependent upon successful awarding of a fellowship.      

Candidates for the 2025-2027 fellowship must be eligible to take the Ohio Bar Exam in July of 2025. Applicants who can be admitted to practice law in Ohio prior to July 2025 or can submit a UBE transfer application to the Supreme Court of Ohio by January 15, 2025 may also be considered. 

To promote social justice and best serve our clients, LASCO is committed to maintaining a diverse staff and providing culturally competent services. We strongly encourage candidates from traditionally underrepresented communities and historically oppressed groups including BIPOC, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ individuals to apply. Bilingual/bicultural candidates are also strongly encouraged to apply.