Summer Policy Intern

Internship Timeline:The summer program begins the Tuesday after Memorial Day. Summer interns commit to working full-time for 10 weeks (Monday through Friday, 7.5 hours/day).

Stipend
: $5000

Public Advocates Inc— a more than 50 year old civil rights law firm— is currently hiring policy interns for the summer of 2026 to collaborate with advocates, directors, and attorneys leading historic reforms for equity, through advocacy, enforcement, and power building in education, housing, transit and climate justice in our San Francisco or Sacramento offices. Our policy interns play a critical role in community partnership and using policy tools to empower impacted communities of color across the state to advance racial and economic justice.

We are committed to providing high-quality training and supervision to help advance the career goals of our interns and to foster a community of social impact professionals.

Public Advocates, a non-profit law firm and advocacy organization, challenges the systemic causes of poverty and discrimination by strengthening community voices in public policy and achieving tangible legal victories advancing education, housing and transit equity, and climate justice. Since 1971, Public Advocates has focused on “making rights real” across California by collaborating with grassroots groups representing people of color, immigrants and low-income individuals to achieve strategic policy reform, enforce civil rights, and support movement-building.

Our Policy Internship Program exposes students to the diverse strategies of our impact work in an environment designed to help them develop as social justice professionals. Each intern is assigned to a supervisor on one of our two teams (Education Equity or Metropolitan Equity) who has primary responsibility for giving constructive feedback in a positive learning environment.

• Policy interns on the Education Equity Team support staff in K-12 and Higher Education advocacy in partnership with community-based organizations. Examples of cases and campaigns include policy advocacy to defund school police, enforcement actions to hold districts accountable for transparent and equitable budgeting, and enforcement actions to hold community colleges accountable for remedial education reform.
• Policy interns on the Metropolitan Equity Team (Housing, Transit, and Climate Justice) support staff and community groups to win investment and development that meets the needs of the state’s low-income residents and workers. Public Advocates, along with our community, regional, and statewide partners, works to secure more affordable housing, robust and affordable local transit service, investment without displacement, healthy and safe communities, and greater power for low-income communities of color in local and regional decision-making.
  
  Examples of our work include campaigns and coalition work that aim to create more homes that families can afford and more protections for tenants facing rising rents.

Policy intern duties may include policy research and writing, drafting legal and policy memos and reports, client communication and leadership development, community training and resource development, coalition-building, and data analysis. In addition to providing substantive policy advocacy experience, the Policy Internship Program includes brown bag sessions, visits with legislative and state leadership in Sacramento, team-building events, meetings with community partners, and more activities intended to complement the day-to-day work of a non-profit professional.

The policy interns will be a part of a cohort with law clerks and be able to work and build community together.

We value applicants with a demonstrated commitment to social justice, policy, and advocacy work.

Interns commit to working full-time for 10 weeks (Monday through Friday, 7.5 hours/day).

Public Advocates currently has a hybrid schedule and we expect all of our interns to be able to commit to working at least part time for 10 weeks in Public…