Environmental Law: Diversity & Inclusion Fellowship

The Environmental Law Section of the California Lawyers Association is pleased to announce its Diversity & Inclusion Fellowship program for Summer 2025. The program provides opportunities for law students from diverse backgrounds to work in governmental and public interest environmental law organizations in order to develop their interests and skills in the field of environmental law.

The Diversity & Inclusion Fellowship program gives law students a chance to spend 8 to 10 weeks over the summer practicing environmental, energy, land use, and/or natural resources law at a participating government agency or public interest organization. Each participant will receive an $8,000 stipend. The Section assists students with placement at the governmental agency or public interest organization and matches the Fellows with mentors who practice in the field. The Section also coordinates gatherings and provides opportunities for Fellows to meet other Section members and attorneys who practice in environmental, energy, land use, and natural resources law fields, and it invites each Fellow to attend the Section’s Environmental Law Conference at Yosemite® in October following the Fellowship with free conference registration.

The Fellowship program is designed to help foster diversity within the Environmental Law Section. The Section strongly encourages applications from law students from diverse or underrepresented backgrounds (including but not limited to diversity arising from the applicant’s sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, color, race, religion, ancestry, national origin, familial status, marital status, mental or physical disability, or genetic information); as well as from students from backgrounds that may have presented obstacles to accessing the legal profession, such as family financial hardship while growing up, being the first in one’s family to go to college, or geographical circumstances such as coming from a rural or inner-city background that limited social interaction with lawyers. The Section will consider such information, as described in the applicant’s personal statement, as part of the selection criteria. Other selection criteria include interest in environmental issues, personal and leadership qualities, and academic record.

The program is open to all law students interested in practicing environmental law in California. Preference is given to first- and second-year students; however, third-year students who are not taking the Bar exam during the summer will also be considered. Students must be members of the Environmental Law Section of the California Lawyers Association in order to be eligible for the program. The California Lawyers Association allows law students up to three free one-year Section memberships, and students who are not already members will be required to join the Environmental Law Section if they are selected for a Fellowship.

The program awarded Fellowships to ten students in 2025. The number of Fellowships for Summer 2025 has not been finalized and will depend in part on the level of sponsorship participation. The Section will coordinate student placements at agencies and organizations interested in participating in the program. In making placements, the Section expects to build off of its experiences from earlier years of the program as well as its prior participation in the American Bar Association’s summer fellowship program. Prior placements have included various agencies and organizations in California, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the California Environmental Protection Agency, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, Earthjustice, Communities for a Better Environment, Sierra Club, NRDC, the California Attorney General’s Office, the California Public Utilities Commission, as well as other government agencies and non-profit organizations. Specific placements for the 2025 program will be made on a case-by-case basis and may or may not include these or similar entities.

This program is co-sponsored by the California Lawyers Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.