Law Clerk and Law Fellowship Programs

ANJC is providing law students and recent law school graduates with experience working in the field of Native law—and helping to create a cohort of Native legal professionals who can serve their communities across the country.

ANJC’s Law Clerk and Fellowship programs encourage law students and recent law graduates to work in the field of Native law while providing opportunities to pursue a wide variety of projects. The programs contribute to the development of the Alaska Native and American Indian law leaders of the future, whatever their career paths in the field might be.

Law Clerk Program

ANJC’s Law Clerk program is for current law students. This position is a short-term, usually full-time position for 10-12 weeks during the summer, or can be part of fulfilling a work-study requirement during the academic year.

Law clerk program details:

• open to current law students
• preference for students in their second year of law school; first year students also considered
• short term
• full-time
• 10-12 weeks during the summer
• possibility for part-time work-study during academic year

Law Fellowship Program

The Law Fellowship program is open to recent law school graduates who may or may not yet have already passed a bar exam. These positions are full-time for one or two years and allow the Fellow to gain valuable experience while continuing to develop essential skills necessary for the practice of law. ANJC Fellows are provided exposure to a variety of Alaska Native legal issues while engaging in research and writing, litigation, communication with clients, and administrative advocacy, among other kinds of work.

Law Fellowship program details:

• open to recent law school graduates
• preference for graduates already admitted to the Alaska Bar
• 1-2 years
• full-time

What Law Fellows and Law Clerks Do

Law Fellows and Law Clerks work on a variety of projects for ANJC, including:

• Providing technical assistance and training to Alaska Native Tribes seeking to build their Tribal justice systems
• Drafting memos and informational white papers summarizing the latest developments in the field of Tribal justice for Alaska Tribes and other organizational partners
• Observing hearings in family law cases, domestic violence cases, and cases pertaining to Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) or Child in Need of Aid (CINA) matters in state court
• Fellows and Clerks also have the unique opportunity to directly represent ANJC clients in court under supervision from an ANJC attorney thanks to Alaska Rule of Administrative Procedure 44

What’s it like to work with ANJC? Learn from our past law clerks and fellows!

• Sam Schimmel, clerk
• Zoë Wise, clerk
• Geoff Bacon, fellow
• Robert Waldroup, fellow
• Lily Cohen, fellow