Internships

Prairie State Legal Services accepts applications for full-time summer law student positions. PSLS also seeks law students during both the fall and spring semesters to intern part-time at our offices.

PSLS is a leading provider of civil legal services in the Midwest. We provide excellent opportunities for students to perform meaningful work and gain valuable experience while addressing the problems of the poor, persons with disabilities, and the elderly. PSLS has a staff of approximately 65 attorneys. PSLS operates twelve offices in northern and central Illinois, located in: Bloomington; Galesburg; Joliet; Kankakee; Ottawa; Peoria; Rockford; Rock Island; St. Charles; Waukegan; Wheaton; and Woodstock.

PSLS represents clients in a variety of substantive areas of law including housing, disabilities, utilities, public benefits, consumer, family, health, and domestic violence. Students can help us deliver badly needed legal assistance in particularly emergent issues now , like mortgage foreclosures and public benefits as more and more families struggle to keep their housing and meet their basic needs.

Law students perform a variety of duties at PSLS depending on their experience level and the needs of a particular office or project. These duties may include client interviews and case investigation; drafting of pleadings, memoranda and briefs; negotiation; direct representation at administrative hearings; court representation under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 711; and legal research. All work is supervised by an experienced attorney. 

Law Student Funding Options

PSLS welcomes law students who are funded either through law school-based public interest fellowships, or through independent fellowship programs. For some programs, the student must secure sponsorship from an organization as part of the application process. If you are applying for such an internship, or are able to arrange funding through such an internship program, PSLS would be happy to consider sponsoring your application. Students should be aware of any deadlines such programs have, and should contact PSLS in sufficient time for us to consider the application.

PSLS will consider your application if you wish to volunteer your time or seek class credit for working at PSLS through a school externship or internship program.

Because of budgetary constraints, PSLS is able to offer a very limited number of paid law student positions. The number and location of paid positions will vary depending on current funding opportunities.

Prairie State provides high quality, effective and innovative services in an efficient manner. Among some recent developments, Prairie State attorneys successfully represented a victim of a mortgage rescue scam in La Salle Bank v. Ferone, 384 Ill.App. 3d 239 (2d Dist. 2008) and the Appellate Court issued a key decision that will help advocates fight mortgage rescue scams and in other foreclosure-related litigation.

In Radaszewski v Maram 2008WL2097382, the Northern District of Illinois ruled in favor of our severely disabled, medically fragile client after 8 years of litigation, including a trial conducted after remand of the case by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (383 F. 3d 599) in a precedential decision interpreting the Americans with Disabilities Act. The relief ultimately ordered makes it possible for our client to live at home with life-saving nursing services, instead of being forced into an institution where his chance of survival was slim.

In Jones v HUD ( N.D. Ill. 2008), Prairie State and the Shriver National Center on Poverty Law filed a federal court challenge to the demolition of a public housing complex based in part on HUD’s misapplication of federal law. Ultimately a consent decree was entered which ensures that the local housing authority will create 84 new units of affordable housing to replace the complex it had allowed to become uninhabitable in anticipation of demolition.

Prairie State’s partnership with State Farm Insurance Companies was recognized with the Annual Pro Bono Partner Award by CorporateProBono.Org (CPBO), a project of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and the Pro Bono Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. Prairie State was recognized by the Retirement Research Foundation for excellence in services to senior citizens and was nominated for the Governors Award for Unique Achievement for innovation in services for seniors. In 2008, the American Bar Association selected Prairie State for a Tax Law Fellowship position.

In 2009, Prairie State was recognized as a 4-star charity by Charity Navigator, America's largest independent evaluator of charities