Legal Service Providers
AIDS Legal Referral Panel
Housing/Benefits & Insurance/Employment Discrimination/Bankruptcy/Estate Planning
ALRP’s mission is to help people with HIV/AIDS maintain or improve their health by resolving their legal issues. ALRP accomplishes this mission by providing free and low-cost legal services to people with HIV/AIDS in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Alameda County District Attorney's Office
To review and prosecute criminal violations of the laws, to protect consumers and the environment and to support and protect victims of crime within the County on behalf of the people of the State of California.
Alameda County Public Defender
http://www.co.alameda.ca.us/defender/
The Alameda County Public Defender's Office provides the highest quality of indigent criminal defense by vigorously advocating for the rights of individuals facing criminal charges in adult and juvenile court.
American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project
https://www.aclu.org/issues/immigrants-rights
Immigration
For nearly 100 years, the ACLU has been our nation’s guardian of liberty, working in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.
American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California
Civil Liberties/Constitutional Law
The ACLU of Northern California is an enduring guardian of justice, fairness, equality, and freedom, working to protect and advance civil liberties for all Californians.
Arab Resource and Organizing Center
Immigration Law
The Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) is a grassroots organization working to empower and organize our community towards justice and self-determination for all. AROC members build community power in the Bay Area by participating in leadership development, political education, and campaigns.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice
https://www.advancingjustice.org/
Housing Rights/Workers’ Rights/Immigrants’ Rights/Voting Rights
The mission of Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus is to promote, advance, and represent the legal and civil rights of Asian Pacific Islander communities.
Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach
http://www.apilegaloutreach.org/
Immigration/Housing/Family Law/Elder Abuse/Tax Law
Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach (formerly Nihonmachi Legal Outreach) is a community-based, social justice organization serving the Asian and Pacific Islander, and other communities of the Greater Bay Area. With offices in Oakland and San Francisco, our work is focused in the areas of violence against women/family law, immigration and immigrant rights, senior law and elder abuse prevention, the rights of those with disabilities, anti-human trafficking, youth violence prevention, affordable housing preservation and tenants’ rights, and other social justice issues.
Asylum Access
Asylum Law/International Law
Asylum Access was founded on September 27, 2005. From our inception, we have engaged in advocacy at a global level that aims to transform the human rights landscape for refugees in first countries of refuge. Our initial advocacy targeted problems in UN-run refugee status determination proceedings that decide the fate of nearly 100,000 refugees in more than 50 countries worldwide, drawing on the direct, on-the-ground experience of our founding staff and board members who had provided legal assistance to refugees navigating these proceedings in Egypt, Uganda, Turkey, Ecuador and elsewhere.
Bay Area Legal Aid
Public Benefits
To thousands of Bay Area residents living in poverty, justice is not an abstract ideal. It is food, shelter and protection. It is the difference between staying in poverty and getting out; between dependence and self-reliance. But without help, justice is often denied.
Bayview/Hunters Point Community Legal
https://bhpcommunitylegal.org/
Civil Rights
Our organization started when we realized that it was in fact possible to ensure universal access to civil representation for everyone. For years, we had watched existing legal aid nonprofits turn away more people than they helped. We had seen the government grossly underfund legal aid and attach ever-more restrictions on who could be helped. We had witnessed the private sector invest atrociously little of its accumulated wealth into legal aid.
California Appellate Project
Criminal Law/Habeas Corpus/Death Penalty Appeals
The California Appellate Project in San Francisco (CAP-SF) is a non-profit corporation established by the State Bar of California in 1983 as a legal resource center to implement the constitutional right to counsel for indigent persons facing execution. CAP serves the largest population of condemned individuals in the country and is funded primarily by a contract with the Judicial Council of California.
CAP-SF assists private counsel appointed by the California Supreme Court to represent indigent defendants in capital cases challenging their convictions and sentences on direct appeal and through habeas corpus proceedings, and provides them with professional training and litigation resource materials. In addition, CAP-SF assists unrepresented death row inmates by collecting and preserving evidence for their post-conviction claims, and by providing advocacy as needed during the period of incarceration before counsel is appointed. CAP-SF also consults, at the request of the judiciary, on policy matters regarding indigent defense representation in capital cases.
California Department of Justice, Consumer Law Section
Consumer Protection
The Consumer Law Section enforces state laws that prohibit unfair or unlawful business practices and false advertising by seeking injunctions, civil penalties, restitution to victims, and other equitable relief.
California Lawyers for the Arts
https://www.calawyersforthearts.org/
Intellectual Property
California Lawyers for the Arts (CLA) is a non-profit, statewide service organization started as Bay Area Lawyers for the Arts in 1974 and as Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts-LA in 1985. The Associate Director will work closely with the Executive Director and other CLA staff to manage Arts Arbitration and Mediation Services (AAMS) for the Los Angeles area and lead a strong education and outreach program while providing administrative leadership and support for the Santa Monica office. The Associate Director maintains quality standards and accurate records for all programs and reports to the Executive Director.
California Public Utilities Commission, Legal Division
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/aboutus/
Supplier Diversity/Water Distribution/First Amendment Issues/Energy Issues/Smart Grid Issues
The CPUC regulates privately owned electric, natural gas, telecommunications, water, railroad, rail transit, and passenger transportation companies
California Rural Legal Assistance
Education/Public Benefits/Labor
California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. (CRLA) is a nonprofit legal service program created to help California's low-income individuals and communities. We represent all types of individuals and communities. We have offices from the Mexican border to Northern California.
CRLA was founded in 1966 to help rural communities because those communities were not receiving legal help. CRLA has 18 offices to continue to meet the legal needs of these communities.
California Tahoe Conservancy
Environmental Law
The mission of the California Tahoe Conservancy is to lead California's efforts to restore and enhance the extraordinary natural and recreational resources of the Lake Tahoe Basin.
Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana
http://lpdb.la.gov/index/index.php
Death Penalty Defense
CPCPL provides high-quality direct representation to death-sentenced Louisiana clients in post-conviction; implements a systematic procedure for appointing counsel when a capital client's conviction and death sentence are affirmed on direct appeal; and assists pro bono civil law firms representing capital post-conviction clients. CPCPL represents clients across Louisiana, in any judicial district in which capital trials have occurred. All capital state post-conviction litigation is funded exclusively through LPDB.
Center for Biological Diversity
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/
Environmental/Administrative
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
Center for Food Safety
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/
Food Safety
Center for Food Safety (CFS), a non-profit, membership-based food and environmental advocacy organization, is seeking applications for a Program Associate in its San Francisco office. CFS’s mission centers on protecting public health, the environment, and farmers by challenging the impacts of potentially harmful food production systems. CFS also works to strengthen food and environmental laws and policies and promote organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. CFS issue areas include: genetic engineering, organic foods, factory farming, pesticides, pollinators, food labeling, global warming, food safety, nanotechnology, and more.
Center for Resource Solutions
http://resource-solutions.org/
Intellectual Property/Employment
Center for Resource Solutions (CRS) creates policy and market solutions to advance sustainable energy.
CRS is a national nonprofit with global impact. It develops expert responses to climate change issues with the speed and effectiveness necessary to provide real-time solutions. Its leadership through collaboration and environmental innovation builds policies and consumer-protection mechanisms in renewable energy, greenhouse gas reductions, and energy efficiency that foster healthy and sustained growth in national and international markets.
Centro Legal De La Raza
Tenants’ Rights/Workers’ Rights/Consumer Rights/Personal Injury
Founded in 1969, Centro Legal de la Raza (Centro Legal) in Oakland is a comprehensive legal services agency focused on strengthening low-income and Latino individuals and families by providing free and low-cost, bilingual, and culturally competent legal representation, education, and advocacy. The mission of Centro Legal is to protect and expand the rights of low-income people, particularly monolingual Spanish-speaking immigrants, throughout the East Bay region of Northern California.
ChangeLab Solutions
http://www.changelabsolutions.org/
Health Law
ChangeLab Solutions is a national nonprofit, based in Oakland, California. We create innovative laws and policies to ensure everyday health for all, whether that’s providing access to affordable, healthy food and beverages, creating safe opportunities for physical activity, or ensuring the freedom to enjoy smokefree air and clean water. Our solutions address all aspects of a just, vital, and thriving community, like food, housing, child care, schools, transportation, public safety, jobs, and the environment.
Contra Costa County Office of the District Attorney
http://www.co.contra-costa.ca.us/203/District-Attorney
The mission of the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office is to seek justice and enhance public safety for all our residents by fairly, ethically, aggressively and efficiently prosecuting those who violate the law, and by working to prevent crime.
Disability Rights California
http://www.disabilityrightsca.org/
Disability Rights
The National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) works to improve the lives of people with disabilities by guarding against abuse; advocating for basic rights; and ensuring accountability in health care, education, employment, housing, transportation, and within the juvenile and criminal justice systems. NDRN is the nonprofit membership organization for the federally mandated Protection and Advocacy (P&A) Systems and the Client Assistance Programs (CAP) for individuals with disabilities. Collectively, the Network is the largest provider of legally based advocacy services to people with disabilities in the United States.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://www.eff.org/
Civil Liberties/Intellectual Property
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. We work to ensure that rights and freedoms are enhanced and protected as our use of technology grows.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Labor & Employment
EEOC is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person's race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.
Equal Justice Society
https://equaljusticesociety.org/
Civil Rights
The Equal Justice Society is transforming the nation’s consciousness on race through law, social science, and the arts. Led by President Eva Paterson, our legal strategy aims to broaden conceptions of present-day discrimination to include unconscious and structural bias by using social science, structural analysis, and real-life experience. Currently, EJS targets its advocacy efforts on school discipline, special education, and the school-to-prison pipeline, race-conscious remedies, and inequities in the criminal justice system. The Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit also engages the arts and artists in creating work and performances that allow wider audiences to understand social justice issues and struggles.
Eviction Defense Collaborative
Landlord/Tenant
Under the supervision of a staff attorney, our legal volunteers and interns interview and counsel tenants facing eviction and assist in the preparation of necessary paperwork. We also have volunteer positions within our Rental Assistance component (RADCo). These volunteers work under the direct supervision of our Rental Assistance Coordinators. RADCo volunteers interview tenants needing rental assistance and assist the program coordinators with various administrative tasks. Also, the EDC fundraising staff are eager to train a grant writer in exchange for some assistance in the development department.
Family Violence Law Center
Child Advocacy/Lanham Act/Trade Secrets/Civil Procedure/California Business Code
We are a group of abuse survivors. In 1978, we created the Family Violence Law Center (FVLC) to help others obtain restraining orders and find emergency shelter. We have expanded our efforts to educate the community, initiate prevention programs and continue to empower domestic violence survivors.
Federal Highway Administration, Western Legal Services Division
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/about/hq/orgchief.cfm
Environmental Law
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is an agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation that supports State and local governments in the design, construction, and maintenance of the Nation’s highway system (Federal Aid Highway Program) and various federally and tribal owned lands (Federal Lands Highway Program).
Federal Labor Relations Authority, Office of the General Counsel (San Francisco)
https://www.flra.gov/components-offices/offices/office-general-counsel-o...
Employment
To promote stable, constructive labor-management relations through the resolution and prevention of labor disputes in a manner that gives full effect to the collective-bargaining rights of employees, unions, and agencies.
Federal Public Defender, Central District of California
Criminal Defense
The attorneys in our Trial Unit are appointed by the court to represent those persons charged with federal offenses who cannot afford to retain their own attorney. We represent over 60 percent of all persons charged with criminal offenses in this District. Our representation starts at the first bail hearing before the federal Magistrate Judge and continues through trial or plea, and sentencing in the district court. Even after sentencing, we continue to represent our clients on appeal before the Ninth Circuit and United States Supreme Court, and thereafter on matters concerning probation or supervised release.
The attorneys in our Capital Habeas Unit represent persons who have been sentenced to death by state court juries from within this District, and whose convictions have proceeded through the state court appellate process and are now before the federal court on claims involving federal constitutional violations.
First District Appellate Project
Appellate
The First District Appellate Project (FDAP) is a non-profit law office, created in 1985 under the auspices of the Bar Association of San Francisco in conjunction with the First Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal and the Administrative Office of the Courts. FDAP's mission is to ensure quality representation of indigent appellants in criminal, delinquency, dependency and mental health appeals in the First District Court of Appeal.
FDAP carries out its mission by: (1) administering the appointment of counsel function of the court, pursuant to California Rules of Court, rule 8.300(e); (2) providing administrative assistance to the Court of Appeal in processing notices of appeal; (3) assisting a panel of approximately 325 attorneys who are appointed to represent indigent appellants in the First District; (4) providing training and resource materials to the panel of attorneys; and (5) undertaking the direct representation of some indigent appellants in the First District.
Habeas Corpus Resource Center
Death Penalty
Located in San Francisco and established in 1998, the Habeas Corpus Resource Center (HCRC) is a state judicial branch entity that provides direct legal representation to death row inmates in post-conviction proceedings in state and federal courts in California. Litigation of a capital habeas corpus proceeding is a complex and time-consuming undertaking. Counsel appointed to represent death-sentenced prisoners in these proceedings review extensive trial records, conduct and supervise new investigation, and research and prepare voluminous petitions and briefs based on state and federal statutory and constitutional law. The HCRC has an authorized staff of 86 people, including 34 attorneys.
Homeless Advocacy Project
https://www.sfbar.org/jdc/jdc-legal-services-programs/hap/
Housing
Founded in 1988, the Homeless Advocacy Project (HAP) is the Justice & Diversity Center’s (JDC) largest individual project.
HAP provides legal services and supporting social services to individuals and families in San Francisco who are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness, while prioritizing individuals who have mental health disabilities.
HAP serves over 1500 clients per year through the work of staff attorneys, social workers and advocates, student interns, and volunteer legal and social service professionals. The most common legal issues addressed at HAP are federal disability benefits advocacy, eviction defense in emergency situations, and immigration documentation.
Immigrant Legal Resource Center
Immigration
The mission of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) is to work with and educate immigrants, community organizations, and the legal sector to continue to build a democratic society that values diversity and the rights of all people.
Immigration Center for Women & Children
Immigration
The Immigration Center for Women and Children (ICWC) is a non-profit legal organization providing affordable immigration services to underrepresented immigrants in California. ICWC strives to provide security and stability for children who are abused, abandoned or neglected and for immigrants who are victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and other violent crimes.
Judicial Council of CA., Center for Families, Children and the Courts
http://www.courts.ca.gov/programs-cfcc.htm
Juvenile Dependency/Domestic Violence
The Center for Families, Children & the Courts (CFCC) works, at the direction of the Judicial Council, to assist courts throughout the state in handling cases involving a variety of case types including family law. CFCC leverages legal, research, and analytical expertise to help state courts efficiently and effectively provide meaningful access to justice.
Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco
Housing/Eviction Defense/Family Law/ Homelessness /Consumer
The Justice and Diversity Center (JDC)’s Pro Bono Legal Services Program and the Homeless Advocacy Project (HAP) provide legal and related social services to low-income and homeless San Francisco residents and to nonprofit organizations that serve these communities.
Law Offices of the Public Defender, County of Riverside
https://publicdef.co.riverside.ca.us/
Misdemeanors/General Felonies/Mental Health/Juvenile
It is the mission of this office to provide the most competent and professional legal representation possible to those individuals who are charged with a crime or involved in certain civil matters.
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
Civil Rights
The principal mission of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is to secure equal justice for all through the rule of law, targeting in particular the inequities confronting African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities. The Lawyers’ Committee is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to enlist the private bar’s leadership and resources in combating racial discrimination and the resulting inequality of opportunity – work that continues to be vital today.
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
http://www.prisonerswithchildren.org/
Juvenile Dependency/Probate/Family
LSPC organizes communities impacted by the criminal justice system and advocates to release incarcerated people, to restore human and civil rights and to reunify families and communities. We build public awareness of structural racism in policing, the courts and prison system and we advance racial and gender justice in all our work.
Marin County Public Defender's Office
http://www.marincounty.org/depts/pd
Criminal Defense
The Office of the Marin County Public Defender strives to provide effective and innovative legal services by protecting the constitutional rights of our clients while treating them with respect and encouraging them to lead productive and positive lives.
National Center for Lesbian Rights
Family/Immigration/Employment/ Civil Rights
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) seeks a Campaign Associate to play a key role in ensuring the success of the Fall Giving Campaign, the primary fundraising campaign of NCLR’s calendar. The Associate will be an independent worker who can own all areas of portfolio management: donor solicitation, contact management tracking in Raiser’s Edge, and report running and analysis. The Associate will have strong administrative, organizational and communication skills, with a high level of attention to detail and strong experience with excel, mail merges, customer service and data entry. The Associate will work closely with and provide key support to all leaders of the Campaign, such as the Major Gifts Officer, Events Manager, and Development Systems Administrator.
National Center for Youth Law
Family & Juvenile/Healthcare/ General Litigation
The National Center for Youth Law is a non-profit law firm that helps low-income children achieve their potential by transforming the public agencies that serve them.
NextGen Climate
Campaign Finance/Environment
NextGen Climate is a San Francisco-based environmental advocacy organization. Founded by businessperson and philanthropist Tom Steyer in 2013, we act politically to prevent climate disaster and promote prosperity for every American. Working at every level, we are committed to supporting candidates, elected officials, and policymakers across the country that will take bold action on climate change. NextGen Climate Action is a 501(c)(4) organization. NextGen Climate Action Committee is a political action committee.
Oakland Unified School District, Office of the General Counsel
Employment/Labor
Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) will build a Full Service Community District focused on high academic achievement while serving the whole child, eliminating inequity, and providing each child with excellent teachers, every day.
Root & Rebound
http://www.rootandrebound.org/
Our Mission
To increase access to justice and opportunity for people in reentry from prison and jail, and to educate and empower those who support them, fundamentally advancing and strengthening the reentry infrastructure across the state of California.
Our Vision
We envision a world where people in reentry have the opportunity and resources available to become productive and valued members of our community.
San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
Environmental
Legal internships, generally eligible for academic credit, are available at the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) for the Spring and Fall semesters, and during the Summer. BCDC is the nation's first state coastal management agency established in 1965 to protect San Francisco Bay and the Suisun Marsh. BCDC issues permits for projects in and along the Bay and Marsh, and develops plans and policies to address a variety of issues that affect the Bay including climate change and sea level rise, public access and wetlands. Commissioners represent state and local governmental bodies around the Bay.
San Francisco County Public Defender Office
Our mission is to protect and defend the rights of our indigent clients through effective, vigorous, compassionate, and creative legal advocacy. We strive to provide the highest level of legal advocacy for each of our clients, and to be a nationwide model for the delivery of indigent defense services.
San Francisco Department on the Status of Women
Gender Equality/Domestic Violence
The Department primarily focuses on 3 program areas: Women's Human Rights, Violence Against Women, Women in the Workplace.
San Francisco Ethics Commission
Governmental Ethics
The San Francisco Ethics Commission seeks interns for public service projects. The mission of the Commission is to practice and promote the highest standards of ethical behavior in government.