Public Defender Internship Program

Overview

The Internship Program is an unpaid internship program. It is designed to give current law students exposure to a public defender’s office, which includes opportunities to observe and assist with legal proceedings and offer contributions to the work of a criminal defense team. With supervision, our program allows students to assume some of the same responsibilities as our full-time personnel.

Interns are supervised by a staff attorney and assigned to work with trial teams that consist of attorneys, investigators, and legal assistants.

Experience

Our program offers interns an opportunity to work with several attorneys on a range of cases, which provides interns with an experience of the types of work performed by criminal defense attorneys at the trial level. Interns work on a variety of projects, including:

Jury selection process
Trial preparation
Witness interviews
Drafting and editing pleadings
Legal research and writing
Meetings with clients in and out of custody
Observing court proceedings
Reviewing case files

Applying

Interested law students should work with their law school’s staff to submit an application to the office. The Public Defender has coordinated with both the University of Idaho and Concordia law schools to create the application process.