It was in the late 1940's and early 1950's when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) took a step towards stopping this racial discrimination by organizing some legal cases which challenged the then existing policy. After some hard real hard work and toil, the NAACP were successful in combining all these cases into one single case and christened it Brown v. Board. It was on 17th May 1954 when the NAACP consequentially won the case and it became an inspiration for millions of people seeking justice in all of America and around the world.
Public interest lawyers are supposed to come up with new lawsuits that will do well for a large mass or group of people. Such Public interest Lawyers usually work for noble purpose organizations such as Environmental Defense or organizations like National Center for Youth Law.
Public interest by itself is a very generic term and can entail a lot of activities including legal clinics. So in addition to being a lawyer you can at times also be a city prosecutor or a public defender which basically is branched under the public sector. You will at times need to be a legal doctor aka social worker strictly aiming at the interests of the masses. As far as the responsibilities are concerned it might vary in accordance to which organization you are working for. There are many organizations like Environmental, Public and Human Rights, Urban Regeneration, and planning, etc in which you can work and akin to the name of the organization your responsibilities will vary. The domain for a legal clinic is huge.
To become a lawyer you definitely need to be law school graduate with a Jurist Doctor degree. As for becoming a public interest lawyer, courses in constitutional law and employment law will make your case stronger. A moot court certificate to prove your ability as a strong public speaker or a confident debater will do only good to your prospects. If you have a dual degree of social working along with law then you can have a stand out C.V among public interest lawyers because such cases are rare and wanted.
As mentioned earlier, a good public interest lawyer is required to have good public speaking experience and all other extracurricular activities add up to your skill sets. Your bar reviews, internships, and writing in the law journals will be appended in the list of your skill sets which will have a positive effect while applying for a job.
There are many different positions for lawyers both in the public and the private sector. One year of internship with judges or dealing with organizations that provide charitable services to people facing discrimination will suffice your training requirements for a public interest lawyer.
Your training period with any organization can cover up your experience column. Most of the time you start off as a junior if working for a big organization and for that you may not need to have immense years of experience. Your internships will suffice for the experience requirements most of the time (depending on your academics).
As a public interest lawyer you will either be in a firm of lawyers in an organization or in the public service area. As mentioned earlier there are many groups of organizations that one can work with. Other than that you can be a law teacher in non academic environments or law schools. Working with disadvantaged people may not really be termed as career prospects but being a public interest lawyer, it can be career where you will be paid with legal aid money.
Salary for public interest lawyers when compared to people in private firms are less. But that is not the primary motive of becoming a public interest lawyer, is it? However, there are national level organizations which work for environment protection and look after cases related to the environment, where you can expect a high end five figure salary. Packages for different organizations differ and if working for a charitable organization your pay will be in aid money.
Public interest lawyers are usually passionate about bringing justice to the deserving and are excited by the prospect of helping the disadvantaged. The same passion and excitement keeps growing when you work for days together with very low wages. An ethical job needing brilliance in analytical and reasoning skills may fetch you millions but public interest lawyers do things in a different way.
