Paid Clerkship - Summer

Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio (LASCO)’s mission is to provide civil legal aid and advocacy to overcome unfairness and injustice, reduce poverty, and increase opportunity. LASCO has a long-standing history of being committed to searching out the patterns, causes of, and solutions to the repetitive and fundamental legal problems facing low-income Ohioans and pursuing the legal recourse needed to address those problems.

Since 1966, our organizations have helped thousands of Ohio’s poor obtain and keep housing, secure public benefits, worked with families to gain and maintain economic stability, and helped domestic violence survivors to live free of fear and abuse and to obtain the resources needed to sustain themselves and their children.

LASCO is pleased to offer four paid Clerkship opportunities. The Clerkship program enables students currently attending law school to receive funding to work during the 2026 Summer for LASCO.

The LASCO Paid Clerkship program offers two Clerkships designed to focus on clients based in the Columbus Office and two Clerkships designed to focus on clients in two of our other Rural Offices (Athens, Chillicothe, Marion, New Philadelphia, Newark, Portsmouth, and Steubenville).

Requirements

The Clerkship:

The LASCO 2026 Clerkship term is scheduled to run between May and August. The Clerkship anticipates full-time work (approximately 40 hours per week) during the summer term (approximately 10 weeks). The Clerkship is funded at a rate of $20 per hour.

Clerks may gain experience with client interviews, legal research, memo drafting, client communication, persuasive letter writing, forms, client document review, community outreach participation and more. Clerks will also have the opportunity to attend Professional Development seminars which will cover a variety of topics that will expand your knowledge of the legal profession and what it is like to work in public interest.

Application Instructions:

*** Students participating in a University Resume Pull or On-Campus Interview (OCI) program will have their application submitted through those recruitment processes. An application via this website is not necessary ***

Students not participating in a University Resume Pull or On-Campus Interview (OCI) program, should submit an application via Paylocity.

Please submit a resume, letter of interest, and references.

The letter of interest should be 500 words or less and the subject of the letter is at your discretion. However, we strongly encourage you to select one, or a combination, of the following topics in your letter: telling us your story, the talents you would bring to the legal profession, your interest in a particular area of law or legal aid, and/or why you should be selected as a clerk.

It is the policy of LASCO not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, national origin, disability, age, ancestry, and military status or any other characteristic protected by law.

Please include your anticipated date of law school graduation and if you choose, any additional information about yourself that is relevant to your application and interest in our clerkship.

LASCO will also have additional unpaid volunteer opportunities available for students and will be engaging closely with law schools and other funder fellowship programs.