Congress Watch Legal Internship

Congress Watch, a division of Public Citizen, is seeking new legal interns (or for-credit externs) to work primarily with its regulatory policy team. Public Citizen is a national, non-partisan, public interest group with more than one million members and activists. The Congress Watch division engages in public education, grassroots organizing, and advocacy before Congress and administrative agencies on money in politics, open government, corporate accountability, financial reform, regulation, health and safety, and access to justice.

The Regulatory Law and Policy internship/externship is designed to provide law students with a better understanding of the role of legal research within the legislative and administrative process. The position is designed to give a broad experience influencing U.S. Congress and administrative agencies as well as varied activities to build a background in public interest policy and advocacy work.

Responsibilities:

• Assisting Congress Watch’s regulatory policy team with duties including developing briefing papers, reports, fact sheets and other educational and lobbying materials; and aiding legislative campaigns, coalition building, and media strategies.
• Providing legal research support on pending legislative issues, sometimes across other Congress Watch teams. Interns will search for and review original documents (e.g. online databases such as Westlaw, Library of Congress resources, and documents from governmental and non-governmental agencies) as appropriate to fulfill research requests.
• Providing a small amount of administrative advocacy support including legislator research, deliveries, errands to Capitol Hill, and other tasks as assigned.

Requirements:

Knowledge: Current law school enrollment or completed Juris Doctor degree. Basic knowledge of administrative law and process, public policy issues, and the legislative process.
Skills: Excellent legal research, analytical thinking, oral and written communication, and organizational skills.
Qualities: Conscientious, accurate, and tenacious. Strong commitment to public interest work. Willingness to assist with all aspects of issue advocacy work.

Public Citizen hires interns for the fall, spring, and summer semesters with flexibility regarding start and end dates.

To Apply:

Public Citizen internships are available year-round. Our internships are up to 40 hours a week for around eight weeks.  **We accept unpaid internship applications on a rolling basis and are currently accepting applications for paid internships for Spring 2026.**

Public Citizen offers unpaid internships (credit can be arranged) and a small number of paid internships ($17.50 an hour).  To be considered for a paid internship for Spring 2026, candidates must apply by November 17, 2025, and submit materials listed below.  Chosen applicants will be notified by December 15, 2025.

If you are applying for a paid internship, please include an essay outlining why you want to intern at Public Citizen and any other information about you that you wish to have considered, including your need for financial support (500 words or less). If you have completed the FAFSA, please also submit a copy of your Student Aid Report (SAR).

Submit cover letter, resume, and writing sample as attachments to congresswatchaction@citizen.org with the subject line “Spring 2026 CW-Legal Internship.” Please specify issue area of most interest to you, if applicable.  No phone calls please. Please note: due to the very high volume of applications we receive, we are only able to contact those who will be moving forward in the application process.