When I started law school, I knew nothing about the various types of civil rights careers that exist. First off, there isn’t any magical or exhaustive list anywhere – at least not that I’m aware of. So I was left to figure it out through the help of our public interest career office and Google. Here is my attempt to compile what I know in one place.
First, it’s important that I preface this by saying that public service and civil rights may overlap, but they are not coterminous. In my mind, public service usually consists of working for the government in some capacity.
Typically, civil rights attorneys file lawsuits against the government to protect the fundamental rights of all members of society, especially the most vulnerable. And the government defends against those lawsuits. So while working for the government is certainly a form of public service, I would say that many civil rights attorneys would not agree that it is a form of civil rights work.
Okay, so you went to law school to become a civil rights attorney. What are your options?
-
-
- Join a private, for-profit civil rights firm
- Join a non-profit that provides legal services
- Become a public defender*
- Work for an enforcement division within the government
- Work for a civil rights unit within the government (ex: DOJ Civil Rights)
-
As I mentioned above, this list is not exhaustive. For example, I’d say doing consumer protection work for a governor that is committed to protecting consumers over big business is civil rights work. However, as I also mentioned above, working for the government is typically not seen as a form of civil rights work, even though it is a form of public service. In a similar vein, public defender work is technically not civil rights work, but I include it in this list because many public defenders go on to do civil rights work in private practice.
Per the request of a friend of mine, I have followed up this post with an article about how to navigate the conflicts between the public service and civil rights world, especially during the job search process.
I have also posted an article about the differences between the type of work in these fields, though with the caveat that I know the private for-profit sector the best given my experience in it.
Overall, the best way to learn about any position you might be interested in is to talk to people in those fields. Here are some articles about who to contact when networking and how to make genuine connections when networking.