There are numerous opportunities for students to become involved in public interest projects while a law student. Some of these projects and activities are highlighted below.

• Post Graduate Fellowship Opportunities: UM Law students have been recipients of many post graduate fellowships from various funding sources. Fellowships often give the attorney a lot of freedom to focus on a social problem or issue that they find personally appealing. Fellowships offer new lawyers the opportunity to create their own jobs with salary, benefits, structure and support that normally do not come with starting out on your own. Fellowship applications are mostly due in the fall of your last year in law school. Some of the more prestigious fellowships to consider are the Equal Justice Works Fellowship, the Echoing Green Fellowship and the Skadden Arps Fellowship. Talk with the Career Planning Center to discuss how to make your dream project a reality, and make sure to plan ahead!
• Public Interest Law Summer Fellowship Program: The Public Interest Law Summer Fellowship Program has a course component and a work component. In addition to enrolling in a seminar, students will be placed in a local government or public service program that provides free legal services to indigent clients. This year the focus will be on providing free and pro bono legal services to the poor. The topic and focus changes each summer. Participants will receive a stipend and three academic credits. Approximately twenty rising second year students will be chosen to participate in this summer's program; the number of students varies from year to year. Selection is based primarily on a strong interest and commitment to public service, as well as academic achievement, demonstrated writing skills, and ability to undertake a major research project.
• Florida Bar Foundation Legal Services Summer Fellowship Program: This fellowship is open to students at Florida law schools, or those who are legal residents of Florida. The fellowship involves recipients in the provision of high quality, significant civil legal assistance to the poor in critical areas of need. Students are placed in selected legal services and legal aid programs throughout the State of Florida. First-year students receive a $4,000 stipend, while second-year students receive a stipend of $5,000.
• HOPE Public Interest Fellowships: This Fellowship allows students to either select an established placement, or find their own public interest entity, to do legal advocacy work anywhere in the world. Students must commit to 200 hours worth of work and must obtain a letter of commitment from the organization with whom they are working. Summer stipends are $2,500.
• NAPIL/VISTA Summer Legal Corp: Law Students are placed alongside full-time AmeriCorps VISTA members and other public service advocates. Students work in community development and capacity-building projects addressing among other issues: Indian tribal law, domestic violence, migrant farm worker issues, and housing and homelessness. Students receive living expenses ($600-$900 a month) and a $1,000 educational stipend.
• Clinical Placement & Theory: The Supreme Court of Florida's Rules Regulating the Florida Bar permit certified second or third year students to engage in the supervised practice of law as part of a law practice program. Under the supervision of a member of The Florida Bar, students enrolled in the Clinical Placement Program may represent indigent clients in both civil and criminal matters and may represent State and local agencies. Some of the agencies involved in the program are the Offices of the Attorney General, the State Attorney, the Public Defender, Legal Services, Legal Aid, and County and City Attorneys with full time legal staffs. Clinical Theory is part of the curriculum during the semester.
  Should a Miami law student wish to be placed in a clinical placement in another state, Miami will assist them in that endeavor. Typically the placement would take place during the summer between the second and third years of law school. Students have been placed throughout the country including in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Washington D.C. Each states' policies regarding the amount of responsibility allowed by law student interns may differ from Florida's; thus, Miami's students must adhere to the policies of the respective state.
  Prerequisite courses include two three-credit courses: Trial Skills and Pre-Trial Skills. In these courses, students' exercises are videotaped and critiqued by highly skilled trial attorneys and judges in the Miami area.
• Children & Youth Law Clinic: The University of Miami School of Law Children & Youth Law Clinic (CYLC) exists to empower Miami's disadvantaged children through legal advocacy, law reform and community building, while also providing School of Law students the opportunity to learn fundamental lawyering skills and sharpen their understanding of professional responsibility.
  Established in the fall of 1995 with funds from the prestigious echoing green Foundation, the CYLC provides representation primarily to abused and neglected children and youth in the foster care system. The clinic also offers services to immigrant, disabled, homeless and HIV-and AIDS-affected children in a variety of settings under close faculty supervision. Students in the Clinic are primarily third-year students who participate through the Clinical Placement Program. They are certified to engage in supervised legal practice, in accordance with the Rules of the Supreme Court of Florida.
• Center for Ethics and Public Service: The Center for Ethics and Public Service (CEPS) is an interdisciplinary project that focuses on teaching the values of ethical judgment, professional responsibility, and public service in the practice of law. Founded in 1996, the Center provides training in ethics and professionalism to the Law School and to the University of Miami as well as to Florida's business, civic, educational, and legal communities. The Center sponsors workshops and symposia at the Law School, provides bench and bar training to the South Florida practice community, and participates in public-private ethics education partnerships with local elementary and high schools. In 1998, the Center received the American Bar Association's prestigious E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award.
• HOPE (Helping Others Through Pro Bono Efforts) Public Interest Law Resource Center: Established in 1998, HOPE is a coordinated effort by students and administrators and serves as a resource center for law-related advocacy and community outreach projects. HOPE is a hub for information regarding public interest law and community-related programming sponsored within the law school and in the community. Students have an opportunity to implement creative programming to meet the needs of underrepresented populations in South Florida. Through the HOPE Public Interest Law Speaker Series, students interact with young alumni practicing public interest law or serving as pro bono attorneys. The HOPE Fellows program enables students to obtain public interest jobs and earn a stipend for what would otherwise be uncompensated work. HOPE recognizes students who have performed pro bono and community service work through the Public Interest Recognition Reception each Spring.
• Ambassador Mentor Program: Law student Ambassadors act as mentors to high school students at Coral Reef Senior High School's magnet program in Legal & Public Affairs.
• Student Organizations: In addition to specific student organizations whose purpose is public service oriented (Public Interest Law Group, Society of Bar and Gavel, Organization for Human Rights, Phi Alpha Delta), many of the School of Law's forty plus student organizations are active in community work either through the H.O.P.E. Public Interest Resource Center described above or through special projects that their groups have undertaken throughout the years. Miami's students take an active role in supporting community needs, both as they arise, and on a continual basis.
• Career Planning Center: The Career Planning Center (CPC) subscribes to the Public Service Law Network, a national network of over 2000 organizations that offer students a chance to experience legally related public interest work. The mission of PSLawNet is to help law students find valuable and manageable volunteer projects during the school year and the summer, as well as to assist with permanent post-graduate positions. The CPC, in partnership with HOPE, sponsors a Public Interest Law Career Fair each Spring. Employers from the public interest and government sector are invited to join our students in table talk in the courtyard. Randee Breiter, the Public Interest Coordinator in the CPC and a Miami law graduate, directly assists students in finding jobs in public services and in applying for grants and fellowships.
• Exemplary Service to the Poor: This award goes to a graduating 3L student who has performed exemplary service benefiting poor persons. The work must have been accomplished through an existing student or community organization. Qualifying work includes law-related as well as non law-related work and may be either directly beneficial to poor persons or to a charitable, religious, or educational organization whose overall mission and activities are designated predominately to address the needs of poor persons.
• Innovative Service in the Public Interest: This award goes to a graduating 3L student or to a student organization whose board membership consists significantly of graduating 3L students. Qualifying work includes the meaningful expansion of an existing program, or creation of a new program. The award seeks to recognize innovation in addressing public interest concerns.