For Incoming and Prospective Students

Why Choose a Life of Service?

A campus with tall and short buildings with many glass windows.

Access to justice remains a pressing challenge and communities in NYC can use a legal helping hand. Your contributions make all the difference. 

  • Your public interest journey starts with the Day of Service, where first-year students kick-start their law school education by building connections with PIRC Student Groups, student leaders, and various student organizations. Joining a PIRC Student Group is a fantastic way to get involved in public interest work from the beginning of law school, to work on issues and areas you care about, and to connect with peers who share your passion. 

    Fordham's Centers and Institutes, such as the Feerick Center,  also offer many dynamic opportunities to get involved during your first year, including specialized service trips.

  • The Public Interest Resource Center (PIRC) is the hub of public interest at Fordham. We are here to help you navigate and map out your public interest journey during law school and after graduation. Whether you are identifying your core passions or searching for specific practice areas, PIRC offers extensive resources and guidance. The PIRC LawNET site includes information on all aspects of public interest practice areas, opportunities, and applications.

  • 1L Summer: Your first summer will be an important time to do more intensive public interest legal work and gain hands-on experience. PIRC is here to support you in all of the pieces of identifying, applying for, and engaging in public interest legal work.

    Upper-Level Opportunities: After your first year of law school, the opportunities will continue to grow. You can immerse yourself in the extensive experiential opportunities at Fordham – legal clinics, focused and general externships, fellowships, and programs like the Crowley Scholars, Feerick Center fellowships, and Pro Bono Scholars. These opportunities will provide invaluable and extensive practice experience while serving communities in need with your burgeoning legal expertise under the guidance of your professors.

    Defining Your Life of Service: What does a life of service look like? That depends on you. What are you passionate about? Where do you see yourself making a contribution? Service can mean pursuing a full-time career in public interest and  social justice work, maintaining a robust pro bono practice alongside your private sector work, or finding a balance anywhere in between. You do not need to have all the answers today; the next three or four years are designed for exploration and preparation.  Your choices in coursework and experiential work (clinics, externships, internships, fellowships, volunteering) over these years will help shape your path. 

    • Bridging the Access to Justice Gap: Millions of individuals in New York City and across the nation face critical legal challenges without representation. Your skills can directly bridge this divide.
    • Maximizing Your Legal Privilege: A legal education is a powerful privilege. Using your legal knowledge to advocate for others translates that privilege into meaningful societal impact.
    • Finding Professional Fulfillment: Engaging in service enriches your legal career, offering profound personal purpose and professional growth.

Public Interest Curated Materials for Incoming Students

The Public Interest Resource Center (PIRC) is the hub of public interest law at Fordham Law School (FLS) and is here to guide and support you in all of your public interest work. This guide, developed by PIRC with input from other staff and faculty at the law school, is a curated collection of books, podcasts, documentaries, articles, newsletters, organizations, conferences, and online resources. Some are foundational introductions to issue areas; others are personal narratives, current-events resources, or examples of lawyers using their skills in creative and impactful ways. 

We hope these resources inspire you as you explore different issue areas and forms of advocacy – and also help you begin identifying the FLS staff and faculty working across a wide range of public interest practice areas. The recommendations throughout this guide reflect their areas of expertise, experience, and passion. Faculty and staff are always eager to speak with students about their work, and within PIRC, our team of former public interest attorneys is here to support, guide, and connect with you throughout your time at FLS. 

This is not intended to be exhaustive either in terms of materials or practice areas. Rather it serves as a starting point for exploration in a sampling of public interest areas. We hope these materials pique your curiosity.

How to Use This Site

You do not need to read everything here! Start with what interests you. Some resources are excellent introductions to major issue areas, while others are designed to help you stay informed about current events, policy developments, and public-interest-oriented legal work. Many of these resources speak to multiple issue areas and forms of advocacy. For ease of organization, we have placed each resource in the section that seemed most closely aligned with its primary focus, though we encourage you to explore broadly across categories.

If you are looking for a general place to begin, we especially recommend:

Letter to a Law Student Interested in Social Justice — William P. Quigley
Article | Recommended by Professor Liz Cooper
A thoughtful and accessible reflection on movement lawyering, solidarity, burnout, and sustaining long-term commitments to justice work.

Editorial Notes

This guide was developed from recommendations submitted by Fordham Law faculty, staff, clinicians, and public interest practitioners. As conversations about legal careers and practice areas increasingly begin earlier, our goal is to help ensure that public interest pathways are meaningfully represented in these conversations as well.

Remember: there is no single path into public interest law. We encourage you to explore broadly, stay curious, and engage with perspectives across issue areas.

We hope these resources help you begin thinking about the many ways lawyers can support communities, movements, and causes they care about.

Welcome to Fordham Law!