The Drug Policy Alliance Office of Legal Affairs seeks students in law, medicine, public health, and/or social work to intern in our Oakland, California office. The Office of Legal Affairs hosts several full time summer interns as well as full time and part time interns during the school year on work study programs and academic externships.

The Office of Legal Affairs is a not-for-profit public interest law office focused on drug law and policy reform at the local, state, national and international levels. The areas that the office has taken a leading role in include: diverting drug offenders from incarceration into rehabilitative programs, decriminalizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes, increasing access to drug treatment programs, countering the drug war’s attacks on reproductive rights, preventing unconstitutional and unreliable forms of drug testing, and promoting the effective treatment of pain with opioid analgesics. The office engages in impact litigation and legislative drafting, serves as consultants to local and state governments, advises attorneys handling important civil and criminal cases, and is amicus curiae counsel for medical, public health, and social services organizations in federal and state courts around the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Its lawyers also contribute frequently to newspapers, magazines and law journals.

Legal interns are asked to undertake a variety of tasks (often concurrently) which typically include: researching legal issues and preparing legal memoranda for counsel; helping draft legal briefs and pleadings; preparing and giving testimony to official governmental bodies; investigating factual issues for evidentiary hearings; drafting letters and op-eds for publication; recruiting amici curiae for court cases; preparing strategy memos for the office; and convening and moderating community meetings.

The Office of Legal Affairs has hosted interns from the following law schools: Columbia, Harvard, Hastings College of the Law, Michigan, New York University, Northeastern University, Stanford, SUNY-Buffalo, University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall), UC- Davis, UCLA, University of San Francisco, and Yale.

Persons wishing to apply for internships with Drug Policy Alliance should send a cover letter, resume and writing sample to: