Washington DC has more legal internships per square mile than anywhere else in the United States, and most students discover them a year too late. The federal calendar does not work like law firm recruiting. Several of the best programmes open their applications in late summer for the summer after next, and the windows are measured in days. This 2026 guide names the actual programmes, tells you which ones pay, and sets out the calendar so you can plan backwards from it.
The single most important thing: the calendar
Federal legal internships recruit roughly a year ahead. If you are reading this in the middle of a calendar year, the applications opening now are for the following summer, not this one.
| Programme | Typical window | Paid? |
|---|---|---|
| DOJ Summer Law Intern Program | Roughly late August to early September, for the summer after next. Around a twelve-day window. | Yes |
| FTC Bureau of Competition, 2L | Mid July to early September | No, but a stipend or credit is required |
| FTC Bureau of Competition, 1L | Late November to early January | Same |
| State Department, Office of the Legal Adviser | Deadline 1 September of the preceding year, offers by mid October | No |
| SEC Scholars Program | Around December to early January | No |
| DOJ volunteer legal internships | Rolling, by office. DOJ advises applying four to five months ahead. | No |
Dates move every cycle, so treat this as the shape of the year rather than a schedule to rely on. Confirm each one on the programme's own page before you diarise it.
The Justice Department: one paid programme, one very large unpaid one
The Summer Law Intern Program, universally called SLIP, is the Department's competitive recruitment programme for compensated summer internships. It runs in two tracks: SLIP-Pathways for students before graduation, where most hires intern after their second year, and SLIP-Law Clerk for graduating students working between graduation and the start of an Honors Program eligibility-preserving activity. You must have completed at least one semester of full-time study by the application deadline, which means first-semester 1Ls are not eligible. Applicants may apply to a limited number of hiring offices, so choose deliberately rather than scattering.
Two things about SLIP deserve emphasis. The window is genuinely short, roughly a fortnight in late summer, and it closes before most autumn recruiting has begun. And the programme is smaller than its reputation suggests: recent participating-component lists have run to well under a hundred positions nationwide across a handful of components. Notably, the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia has not been among them, and runs its own separate unpaid programme instead.
The volunteer legal internship route is the opposite in every respect. It is unpaid, decentralised, and far larger, with over 1,800 volunteer legal interns serving across Justice components and US Attorneys' offices each year, in both term time and summer. Each office runs its own programme with its own deadlines, and the Department advises applying at least four to five months in advance. Students who have not completed their first semester may apply from December. These placements can count for course credit or through a law school work-study programme. Confirm current requirements with the Department of Justice.
The agencies, and a naming trap that costs people interviews
Before the list, learn the trap. At several agencies the words "Honors Program" describe a post-JD entry-level attorney programme, not a student internship. That is true at the SEC, the FCC, the CFPB, the NLRB, and the Labor Department. Applying to an honors programme as a 2L looking for a summer internship marks you immediately as someone who did not read the page.
The student programmes have their own names. The SEC runs the SEC Scholars Program, unpaid, ten weeks, restricted to US citizens, and expressly not convertible to a permanent position. The FTC runs separate legal internships in the Bureau of Competition and the Bureau of Consumer Protection, both unpaid but requiring the student to receive a stipend or course credit, and both restricted to US citizens. The FCC's Office of General Counsel takes unpaid interns for at least eight consecutive weeks and expressly encourages 1Ls. The CFPB runs an unpaid Legal Externship Program, the NLRB a Student Volunteer Program, and the Labor Department's Solicitor's Office places students for credit or a stipend.
The State Department is the useful exception on pay. Its general Student Internship Program is paid at an entry federal grade, while the Office of the Legal Adviser runs a separate, unpaid summer programme taking around fifteen second-year students, with a deadline of 1 September in the preceding year and offers by mid October, plus a term-time externship. Note that Legal Adviser placements are conditional on obtaining a Secret-level security clearance, which is a real constraint on timing.
One geographic footnote: the USPTO's law internships are in Alexandria, Virginia, not the District itself.
The honest summary of federal legal internships in DC is that almost all of them are unpaid, and DOJ's SLIP is the conspicuous exception. Plan your funding before you plan your applications, not after.
Congress, where the pay position has genuinely changed
Congressional internships used to be a byword for unpaid work. That is no longer accurate. Recent legislative branch appropriations provide designated funding for internships in House members' personal offices, House committees, House leadership offices, and senators' personal offices. House intern pay is set at the member's discretion within a floor and a ceiling published in the members' handbook, and paid House interns are exempt from the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, so the published band is the operative number rather than an hourly rate.
Two structural points are worth knowing. Paid House interns may serve no longer than 120 days in a twelve-month period, and the Senate caps an internship at twelve months in total. And neither chamber institutionally requires an intern to be receiving academic credit or even to be currently enrolled, which makes congressional internships unusually open compared with agency programmes. The Congressional Research Service publishes a regularly updated FAQ on congressional internships that is the best single source on this.
The courts
DC hosts the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the DC Circuit, and the local DC Courts, and all of them place law student interns. There is no central application system: placements are made by individual judges, chambers by chambers, and are almost always unpaid. Our guide to judicial internships covers how chambers applications actually work. The Federal Public Defender for DC also takes unpaid volunteer interns across all three terms, with clean published deadlines, and encourages applicants to seek outside funding.
The US Attorney's Office for DC runs three unpaid programmes a year, asking for part-time hours in term and full-time over the summer, with a stated grade threshold and a citizenship requirement. Appointment is conditional on a pre-employment adjudication including fingerprint, credit, and tax checks.
Public interest, and where the money actually is
The public interest sector in DC is large and its pay position is uneven, so check each posting rather than assuming. Legal Aid DC runs a genuinely paid programme with published summer and semester amounts. The ACLU's DC-based roles are mostly course-credit-only, with occasional paid exceptions, and its marketing pages do not always match its job board. The Washington Lawyers' Committee takes unpaid interns in term time and offers a conditional summer stipend. Children's Law Center posts on a predictable rhythm, with spring roles appearing in the autumn and summer roles in November.
For searching, PSJD is the public interest clearinghouse and is a NALP initiative, though student access runs through a school subscription. Equal Justice Works is frequently mistaken for a job board; it primarily runs postgraduate fellowships and a career fair rather than an internship search engine.
How students actually fund unpaid internships
The mechanism is law school summer public interest funding, and if your school has it, it is the single most important thing to investigate early. Programmes at schools such as Harvard and Yale exist precisely because so many public interest and government placements are unpaid. Yale's, for example, publishes a maximum grant across a maximum number of weeks at a defined weekly rate, treats the award as reportable income, and generally excludes students splitting a summer with a private firm. Terms differ enormously between schools, so read your own school's rules rather than a general description.
Then budget the time cost of clearance. The Justice Department permits short-term access without a full background investigation, which is why many placements are capped in length. Programmes requiring a Secret-level clearance need months of lead time, and agencies running their own investigations commonly build a two-month block between selection and start date.
A correction on 1L recruiting timing
A great deal of published advice still refers to a NALP rule barring employers from contacting first-year students before 1 December. That is out of date. NALP's current governing document is its Principles for a Fair and Ethical Recruitment Process, and it sets no date for the earliest contact with 1Ls. It asks employers to exercise particular sensitivity during the first semester and to respect individual law school guidelines. In practice, timing is now set by your own law school's policy, so ask your career office rather than relying on the old national date.
Frequently asked questions
Are legal internships in Washington DC paid?
Mostly not. The Justice Department's Summer Law Intern Program is compensated, and the State Department's general student internship programme is paid, but the large majority of federal agency legal internships in DC are unpaid or for credit only. Congressional internships are now frequently paid within a published band.
When should I apply for a DC legal internship?
About a year ahead. Several federal programmes open in late summer for the summer after next, and the Justice Department advises applying to volunteer internships four to five months in advance. Term-time placements generally recruit in the preceding semester.
Can 1Ls get legal internships in DC?
Yes, though options are narrower. DOJ volunteer internships accept 1Ls from December, the FCC's Office of General Counsel expressly encourages them, and the FTC runs a separate 1L window. DOJ's paid summer programme is not open to first-semester students.
Do I need US citizenship?
For many federal legal internships, yes. The SEC Scholars Program, the FTC's legal internships, and the US Attorney's Office for DC all require citizenship, and some placements additionally require a security clearance. Congressional internships are more flexible, with citizenship left to the office.
How do students afford an unpaid DC summer?
Principally through law school summer public interest funding, which many schools run precisely because these placements are unpaid. Some public interest employers also offer stipends conditional on the student first seeking school funding. Academic credit is common but does not pay rent.
Is there a central place to find these?
No single one. Federal roles appear on USAJOBS and on individual agency pages, judicial placements go directly to chambers, and public interest roles are aggregated on PSJD, which is subscription-based through law schools. Expect to check agency pages directly.
The bottom line
DC rewards students who work the calendar rather than the application. Identify the three or four programmes that genuinely fit you, find their real windows on their own pages, and work backwards to when you need a writing sample and references ready. Sort your funding in parallel, because here the offer is often the easy part and paying for the summer is the hard part.
Ready to look ahead? Compare a different internship track in judicial internships and legal internships in NYC, see where these roles lead in attorney jobs in Washington DC, and browse current openings on our US legal internships board.
This article is a general 2026 guide, not legal or career advice. Programme names, eligibility rules, pay status, and application windows are set by each employer and change every cycle, sometimes substantially. Dates described here are indicative of the shape of the recruiting year rather than a schedule to rely on. Always verify current requirements and deadlines on the programme's own official page before applying.