"Local Journalism Fellow - Cornell Law School"

Founded in 1887, Cornell Law School is a top-tier law school. We offer a 3-year JD program for about 200 students per class, a one-year LLM program for about 90 students from countries throughout the world, and a doctoral (JSD) program for about 2-3 new students per year. Cornell Law School has 41 tenured and tenure-track faculty, including 20 with chaired faculty positions; and 15 clinical professors in the legal research and writing program and in clinics at the local, national, and international level. Our faculty is consistently ranked among the top in the country for scholarly productivity and influence, and has pre-eminence in many areas, including quantitative and qualitative empirical legal studies, international and comparative law, and robust doctrinal scholarship in core fields. Our school is committed to being recognized as the leader among law schools at combining inspiring theoretical, doctrinal, and experiential teaching with cutting-edge scholarship in a supportive, intellectually rich community, so that our graduates can achieve excellence in all facets of the legal profession.

The Local Journalism Project, a special initiative within the Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic, has in its five-year existence become one of the country's most effective and essential organizations providing pro bono legal services to local media outlets and journalists throughout the country, with geographic emphasis in New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. It is a basic tenet of the Local Journalism Project that supporting and enhancing local journalism strengthens democracy. In supporting the local journalism ecosystem, the Local Journalism Project has also taught dozens of law students litigation skills that they have deployed on behalf of local journalism clients.

Reporting to the Associate Director of the Clinic and the Managing Attorney of the Local Journalism Project, and working with the legal staff and students of the Clinic, the Local Journalism Fellow will provide legal support to the Local Journalism Project's active litigation docket. As part of a law school clinic, the Local Journalism Project has two core objectives: (1) litigating and supporting cases and other legal proceedings that aid and defend journalists and media outlets in their news-gathering functions; and (2) cultivating lawyers who are educated about freedom of speech and press principles embodied in the First Amendment and inspiring and preparing them to pursue careers defending such principles.

Responsibilities include the following:

• Provide supervision to students in the Clinic, including feedback, mentoring, and training.
• Manage ongoing cases that are either staffed with students or handled by staff alone, ensuring that the work is done in a timely and professional manner.
• Provide counseling and other legal support to clients of the Local Journalism Project on non-litigation matters, including pre-publication review, newsgathering activities, access and public records advice, commercial and other operational and organizational advice.
• Assist with the organization and teaching of the Clinic, focusing on substantive knowledge of First Amendment doctrine and the litigation process, as well as effective legal writing, advocacy, and client relations skills.
• Help organize, and participate in the teaching of each semester's First Amendment Bootcamp.
• Help develop the focus of cases the Local Journalism Project will take on that support, protect and defend clients' ability to gather and publish news and that challenge attempts to restrict their ability to publish.
• Help hire for and supervise interns for the Clinic's summer program.
• Collaborate with the Clinic staff on programming to bring press-related issues to the broader Law School and University communities.
• Help maintain relationships within the legal and journalism community, including law firms and advocacy organizations that focus on local journalism, First Amendment clinics at other law schools, and regional news platforms and journalists.

The successful candidate will be based in Ithaca, NY and is expected to work on-site. This full-time position is for a two-year term, and is benefits eligible. Employment through the intended term is contingent on successful performance and continued funding. The expected start date for the position is October 1, 2025, although some flexibility may be available.

Qualifications: The Local Journalism Fellow must be a law graduate, with significant litigation experience and a background in constitutional law. They must either be admitted to the practice of law in New York, prepared to take the New York bar exam prior to beginning the Fellowship, or be admitted on written motion after hiring. A clerkship (or clerkships) and prior work in the media industry are desirable, but not required.