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Internships

The Centre for Law and Democracy accepts interns and volunteers on a rolling basis, subject to availability of spots. We have a particular interest in interns/volunteers with legal and/or communications expertise, although other areas of skill are also welcome.

CLD is currently accepting applications for 2024 summer internships. Applications are due on 4 February 2024. See here for further information.

For inquiries about internships outside of the summer months, please see the contact information below.

CLD offers students and interns a very rich and varied experience, and the opportunity to work on a wide range of projects. At CLD, the vast majority of the work done by students and interns is substantive in nature, focusing on research and analysis of legislation, and sometimes also legislative drafting, litigation and advocacy. It is also overwhelmingly legal in nature. Students and interns may also be asked to assist with minor administrative tasks, such as uploading press releases to CLD’s website and researching funding opportunities, but these activities make up a very small proportion (at most 10%) of the overall experience.

The types of work students and interns are most commonly assigned are as follows:
• Background research: Students and interns are often asked to conduct background research into thematic issues which will then feed into CLD’s activities. The latter may be publications, legal analyses or law reform work.
• Legal analyses: An important part of CLD’s work involves providing detailed analyses of legislation, either in draft form or which has been targeted for reform by our partners. Students and interns are often asked to assist with this in different ways, including by preparing initial drafts or by conduction comparative legal surveys to assess how other countries deal with the issue in question.
• Legislative drafting: CLD is regularly asked by partners in the global south – whether official or from civil society – to assist them in preparing legislation or background documents for legislation. Interns may be asked to support this process in different ways, including by preparing initial drafts (usually in an iterative process closely overseen by CLD staff, starting with an outline and proceeding from there).
• Other forms of drafting: Students and interns may be asked to assist with other forms of drafting, depending on the work CLD currently has on its agenda, such as assisting in drafting documents for ongoing litigation, letters and press releases to comment on global developments, internal policy papers, etc.

To enquire further about internships/volunteer positions, please contact us at:

press@law-democracy.org