The Alaska Office’s docket is focused on protecting the Alaska coastal rain forest, safeguarding America’s Arctic, and conserving the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska marine ecosystem.

Our work also includes wildlife conservation, protection of lands and waters from mining activities, air and water quality enforcement, and national park and other public lands management.

Our clients include national, regional, and local conservation organizations; Alaska Native tribal organizations; Alaskan communities; ecotourism businesses; and other organizations concerned about enforcing the laws to protect the environment.

Both locations of the Alaska Office — Juneau and Anchorage — offer breathtaking scenery and outstanding access to wilderness and recreational opportunities. The long daylight hours make summer the ideal time to experience and appreciate Alaska.

Learn more about the Alaska Office's work.

The Biodiversity Defense Program fights to reshape our relationship to lands, water, and wildlife everywhere by confronting the major drivers of the decline in nature, including habitat destruction and over-exploitation of wildlife.

The program’s work brings Earthjustice’s strategic, collaborative, and hard-hitting approach to environmental protection into new issue areas and geographies. Additionally, we advance policies aimed at protecting habitat critical to the survival of species, such as a national plan to permanently protect America’s carbon-dense and biodiverse old-growth forests.

Learn more about the Biodiversity Defense Program.

Earthjustice’s California Regional Office works to promote clean energy and zero emission transportation policies; to rein in oil and gas extraction, particularly in locations that threaten frontline communities; to improve air and water quality for residents in the Central Valley; to preserve lands and biodiversity in the Sierra Nevada, Bay Delta, and elsewhere; and to protect state residents and sensitive ecosystems from pesticides and other toxic substances.

Our attorneys bring a mix of lawsuits and administrative advocacy under federal environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Environmental Policy Act, as well as California statutes, to protect the environment and promote environmental justice.

The California Regional Office is seeking law clerks for summer 2024 to work alongside our attorneys and advocates in our San Francisco and Los Angeles offices. Please note in your cover letter if you have a preference for one of the two offices, or are interested in both.

Learn more about the California Office's work.

We are also participating in the Diversity and Inclusion Fellowship Program organized by the Environmental Law Section of the California Lawyers Association (CLA Section), through which an additional 2024 summer law clerk may be placed with our team. That program has a separate application process administered by the CLA Section. For more information, including to whom you should direct any questions..

The Clean Energy Program is focused on transitioning the power sector away from fossil fuels to build the clean, equitable energy system of tomorrow.

There are three major bodies of work within the Clean Energy Program.

• Our FERC team works at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and at regional transmission organizations to remove barriers to clean energy deployment in wholesale electricity markets.
• Our state PUC team engages deeply in states at varying stages of the energy transition — from California to West Virginia — litigating at Public Utilities Commissions to retire coal plants, stop the rush to gas-fired generation, advance clean energy resources, and leverage clean electricity as an alternative to fossil fuel reliance in end uses like home heating and transportation.
• Our coal ash team is focused on cleaning up coal's toxic legacy, protecting people and water from the long-lived impacts of prior reliance on coal.

Clean Energy is the largest program within Earthjustice and spans the country, with people working in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and New York. The Clean Energy Program is led by the managing attorney, four deputy managing attorneys, and a director of State Power Sector Advocacy.

Learn more about the Clean Energy Program's work.

We work hand-in-hand with frontline communities to remove environmental hazards and secure access to environmental benefits.

We act collectively with our community partners to challenge harmful social and political structures, and to improve the environmental conditions in neighborhoods.

We support community-led movements using a full range of advocacy strategies to challenge the status quo.

We represent frontline communities across the country to challenge polluters that harm health, safety, and quality of life; to close dangerous regulatory loopholes; to open access to information and records; to increase transparency into environmental decision-making and polluting operations; and to enforce federal, state, and local laws meant to protect communities from environmental harms.

Learn more about the Community Partnerships Program

The Florida regional office wields the power of the law to protect our waterways and biodiversity, promote a just and reliable transition to clean energy, and defend communities disproportionately burdened by pollution.

In federal, state and administrative courts, as well as through advocacy before agencies and other fora, we seek to protect Florida’s special places, species, and communities.

From our many crystal clear springs to the wilds of the Everglades, our office takes on the most pressing environmental fights of our times in one of the most unique states in the country.

Learn more about the Florida Office's work.

At a time when we desperately need to reduce greenhouse emissions to prevent the worst impacts of climate change, the oil and gas industry is aggressively expanding fossil fuel infrastructure, locking us into decades of future fossil fuel use and directly harming the communities already hardest hit by climate disruption.

Earthjustice’s Fossil Fuels program is confronting this massive build-out. We use litigation, administrative advocacy, and partnership to advance an end to U.S. oil and gas extraction and production, and stop new infrastructure (e.g. petrochemical facilities, export terminals and pipelines), focused in the U.S. Gulf Region and Appalachia.

Learn more about the Fossil Fuels Program.

Earthjustice’s Gulf Regional Office is building a team to support frontline communities as they work to protect the health and iconic ecosystems of the Gulf from fossil’s last-ditch effort to pollute our homes and wreck our climate.

Based in Houston, Texas, our Gulf office is working to deepen regional partnerships and build power to defend ecosystems, protect communities from toxic pollution, and stop large scale fossil fuel expansion at its source.

This role is open to current law students, with a preference for 2Ls. The Gulf Regional Office covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi and can accommodate remote clerks in any of those three states.

Learn more about the Gulf Office's work.

Drawing on deep experience in foreign, U.S., and international environmental, energy, and human rights law, and foreign and international litigation, Earthjustice’s International Program works with partners in South Africa, Indonesia, Australia, Latin America, and elsewhere on domestic and international legal advocacy to reduce dependence on dirty fossil fuels and speed the transition to clean energy.

International program staff represent and collaborate with organizations and communities to establish, strengthen, and enforce national and international legal protections for the environment and public health.

Learn more about the International Program's work.

Earthjustice opened its Mid-Pacific Office in Honolulu in 1988 to protect natural and cultural resources throughout Hawai‘i and the larger Pacific region.

Earthjustice Mid-Pacific has led campaigns to restore stream flows to communities and watersheds across the islands, protect Hawai‘i's imperiled species from harmful activities, hold the military and other government actors accountable for pollution, and to transition the economy off fossil fuels and onto the clean energy grid of the future.

Our attorneys file suit under national laws such as the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, and state laws such as the Hawai‘i Environmental Policy Act.

The Mid-Pacific Office also has a long history of enforcing environmental rights and traditional and customary Native Hawaiian rights that are enshrined in the Hawai‘i Constitution.

Earthjustice Mid-Pacific is looking for summer law clerks who have excellent research, writing, and oral advocacy skills; solid academic records; demonstrated commitment to the environment, community empowerment, and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; the ability to be a team player; and a strong work ethic, sense of initiative, and sound judgment. A sense of humor is also desired.

To apply to work in our office, please submit a resume, list of three references, and a 10-page maximum legal memorandum or brief that is primarily student’s original (unedited) work.

Applications from second-year law students are generally favored, but applications from first year law students will be considered.

Learn more about the Mid-Pacific Office's work.

The Midwest Office’s legal advocacy and litigation spans all three of Earthjustice’s program areas — healthy communities, climate & energy, and lands & wildlife.

We fight proposed mines and pipeline projects that threaten the tribal nations and endanger the region’s treasures, including the Great Lakes and the Boundary Waters.

We work with communities impacted by contaminated air, drinking water, waterways, and soil to fight for environmental justice and to develop safer and cleaner neighborhoods in which to live.

Learn more about the Midwest Office's work.

The Northeast Regional Office is dedicated to protecting public health and the climate and ensuring a healthy environment for all in the Northeast. We litigate and advocate for a just and equitable transition to clean energy and on behalf of communities disproportionately impacted by environmental harms.

The staff of the Northeast Office work to address the serious health and environmental threats associated with gas-burning power plants, landfills, toxic chemicals, and other sources of pollution.

We partner with clients and communities to implement New York’s landmark climate law, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, including by electrifying buildings and the transportation sector and to secure clean drinking water and housing for all.

Learn more about the Northeast Office's work.

Staffed by seven attorneys, two litigation assistants, and an office manager — engages in regional, ecosystem-, and community-based litigation focused on safeguarding some of America’s last remaining grizzly bears, wolves, bison and other wildlife; preventing the industrialization of culturally and ecologically important lands in the Northern Rockies; and stemming the extraction and burning of fossil fuels that feed global warming.

We advocate in state and federal courts, as well as administrative forums such as state public utility commissions.

The Northern Rockies office works in close partnership with area Tribes and tribal interests on issues ranging from coal extraction and destructive hard-rock mining to grizzly bear protection.

Learn more about the Northern Rockies Office's work.

The Northwest Office opened in 1987 to protect the people and environment of the Pacific Northwest.

Since that time, the Northwest office has partnered with conservationists, community groups, and tribes to protect old growth forests, defend salmon and salmon streams, stop coal and oil shipping terminals, shield farmworkers and their families from pesticides, and promote a just transition to clean energy, among other things.

Although the primary focus of the Northwest office is representing environmental and citizens’ groups in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, we often take cases with national and international scope.

Learn more about the Northwest Office's work.

Earthjustice’s Oceans Program works to protect marine biodiversity and to stop the expansion of offshore oil and gas drilling.

Our team currently consists of 10 full-time attorneys and a litigation paralegal. We litigate cases primarily in federal court aimed at protecting ocean resources in the United States from threats such as overfishing, habitat degradation, and harms from offshore drilling.

We also work to protect marine ecosystems and vulnerable species from these threats outside our borders by strengthening international provisions in U.S. fisheries management laws and in partnerships with advocates across the globe.

Summer clerks will work on a mix of international and domestic ocean matters.

Learn more about the Oceans Program's work.

The Rocky Mountain Office opened in 1973 and was Earthjustice’s first regional office.

We work to protect vulnerable communities from pollution and other harmful impacts, and we challenge decisions by federal agencies that would harm the region’s remarkable and biologically diverse public lands, water, and wildlife.

We also have a robust practice before the Colorado Public Utilities Commission where we urge regulators to ensure that renewable energy is more broadly available and affordable for all on an equitable basis, and that utilities develop long and short-term plans to deliver that result.

Our clients include a wide variety of tribes as well as national, regional, and local environmental and community organizations. Examples of our cases include defense of the Biden administration’s restoration of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments; advocacy to clean up air pollution in Denver and along the Front Range, with a particular attention to protecting disproportionately-impacted communities; litigation to ensure that the nation’s waterways are fully protected under the Clean Water Act; and protection of biologically rich habitats like southern Arizona’s San Pedro River and the millions of acres of habitat that must be protected to ensure the survival of rare sage grouse.

Our team meets these and other challenges with a passion for Earthjustice’s mission, a commitment to our clients, and a great sense of humor and camaraderie.

Learn more about the Rocky Mountain Office's work.

The Sustainable Food and Farming Program engages in litigation and advocacy to improve our nation’s food system, from crop selection and farming practices to food processing and sustainability.

Working in partnership with communities, advocacy groups, scientists, and others, we fight for safe and healthy food, climate-friendly farming, reduced reliance on dangerous pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and animal farms — not animal factories.

We take on cases with regional and national scope.

Learn more about the Sustainable Food and Farming Program.

Earthjustice’s Toxic Exposure & Health Program litigates in state and federal court and conducts administrative and legislative advocacy to ensure that all people have safe workplaces, neighborhoods, and schools; have access to safe drinking water and food; and live in homes that are free of hazardous chemicals.

We partner with and represent health-focused organizations and groups who are concerned about people’s exposure to hazardous chemicals, including the communities surrounding the facilities where those chemicals are manufactured, used, and released.

Learn more about the Toxic Exposure and Health Program.

The Tribal Partnerships Program works across Earthjustice’s regional offices and programs to develop cross-cutting strategies on behalf of our tribal and Indigenous partners and to provide added capacity and expertise on matters of concern to tribes and Indigenous communities.

Tribal Partnerships attorneys litigate cases, collaborate and consult with program and regional office attorneys, conduct outreach with tribes and Indigenous communities, and work with Earthjustice’s other teams as needed.

Learn more about the Tribal Partnership Program.

Earthjustice’s Washington, D.C., office serves both as a center for litigation on important national environmental issues and as a regional office for issues arising in the Mid-Atlantic states.

The current docket includes litigation and advocacy to: curb climate change pollution; protect public health and the environment from air pollution, including in frontline and disproportionately impacted communities; ensure safe drinking water, clean rivers, and equal access to sanitation; protect people from the dangers of hazardous wastes and toxic chemicals; and secure strong energy efficiency standards for the nation.

Learn more about the Washington, D.C., Office's work.