My 2L Summer Internship
All about my time in the Summer Honors Program at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of General Counsel!
Application Process & Placement
The US EPA General Counsel’s Summer Honors Program is their summer internship program. I applied to the Summer Honors Program in August of my 1L summer (2020) through our law school’s career services page where a bunch of legal internship opportunities are posted for us. (For Summer 2022 applicants, the listing can be found on USA Jobs and is open until August 31st!) From what I remember, the application materials were a cover letter, resume, transcript, references, and writing sample (5-10 page memo is a standard writing sample, and I had one from my 1L summer). I interviewed for the program in early October over the phone with 4 interviewers, who were all attorneys in the General Counsel’s office. I got offered a spot in early November.
There are many different offices within the General Counsel’s office. Air, water, solid waste, pesticides, etc.! In your application you can identify an office you prefer to be placed in if you have one. I did not have a preference because I was (and am still) trying to figure out what specific area within environmental law interests me most. I really wanted to work for the EPA and would have been happy with any of the placements. When I accepted my offer to be in the program, I got placed into the External Civil Rights Compliance Office (ECRCO)! I talk about what they do in the “Work” section of this blog post, below. Counting me, there were 8 summer law clerks total spread out between the various law offices.
Funding & DC Housing
Unfortunately this program was unpaid for 2021. I am 99% positive it is a PAID internship program starting summer 2022 though. I was fortunate enough to receive a bunch of funding from my law school (for doing unpaid public legal work) and that was how I was able to move out to DC for the Summer to participate in this program. I booked an Airbnb in Rosslyn which was an excellent location!
Work
During the summer honors program, all the interns get to attend weekly lectures to learn about various topics like environmental justice, administrative law and so much more. We also organized little virtual happy hours and had “coffee chats” with attorneys of the EPA.
A Summer Honors Program Law Clerk’s main job is legal research and producing memos/briefs on that research. Some of it includes analyzing recent court cases, finding authority in the law for the agency to take a particular action, researching other agency’s regulations, etc., and then some of it was more policy related. I ended up with a few good writing samples by the end! As a summer law clerk, you also get to pick one other office to do a research assignment for, so I picked the solid waste office and worked with them for a bit. At the conclusion of my summer, I briefed the Acting General Counsel on an in-depth research assignment I had done and answered questions. The presentation was 20 minutes long and felt a bit like a moot court, and was overall a great learning experience on how the GC Office runs.
In addition to legal research, I helped a team in the civil rights office with an investigation into whether or not a federal fund recipient had violated civil rights laws. Basically, when a state government, local government, or other group receives funding of any sort from the EPA, they have to promise to obey federal laws, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
One good hypothetical example is, lets say a state government who receives money from the EPA approves a permit for a new landfill to be built, but the landfill would be placed near a disadvantaged community and they would suffer from the pollution of this landfill’s operations. A member of that community could send in a complaint to the office I worked in to investigate, and if there was discrimination against that community, even if it was unintentional, then the state government’s federal funds could possibly be taken away.
I can’t really talk about what specific research I did, or what the investigation I worked on was about, but I can definitely say it was very interesting work! I loved sitting in on all of the meetings and conference calls and just learning how the Title VI civil rights compliance process works.
Balancing Work and Exploring DC
One beautiful thing about this internship, and government work more generally, is that for the most part your work ends at 5PM everyday and you don’t work on the weekends. I always had my evenings and weekends to explore the city and see everything I wanted to experience! On top of that, the EPA Headquarters is located right across the street from the National Mall, so I was able to walk around cool monuments and museums commuting to work and on my lunch breaks. I saw so many cool things over the course of the summer, and even took some day and weekend trips outside of the DC area.
I’m always happy chat or answer any questions you have about this internship or legal internships in general! Here are some other helpful blog posts of mine:
Legal Internship interview tips and questions to prepare for
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earthtojul
I'm a student at UC Davis School of Law studying to be an environmental attorney. I enjoy finding cool new food spots, traveling, and live concerts!