Monday, May 23, 2011

Labor & Housing Legal Intern at MinKwon Center for Community Action

The MinKwon Center for Community Action (formerly YKASEC) was established in 1984 to meet the needs and concerns of the Korean American community through our five program areas: Community Organizing and Advocacy, Social and Legal Services, Civic Participation, Youth Empowerment, and Culture. Since our founding, we have made a profound presence in the Korean American community through various grassroots organizing, education, and advocacy initiatives that address important community issues, including immigration policies at the national, state and city levels, voter rights, and culture awareness. The MinKwon Center places a special emphasis on meeting the needs of our marginalized community members, including youth, elderly, recent immigrants, low-income residents, and limited-English-proficient residents.

The MinKwon Center’s comprehensive Immigrant Rights Legal Clinic provides free legal services to the Asian American community members in both the Flushing, Queens area and throughout the metropolitan New York area. The Immigrants Rights Legal Clinic seeks to protect the rights of community members by providing free legal assistance in the areas of labor, immigration, housing, and civil rights law. We provide direct legal representation and work closely with other legal groups and pro bono lawyers to help these community members achieve social and economic justice.

Internship Description
• Engage in direct contact with clients – participate in initial intakes to assess client cases, and act as a liaison for clients.
• Work on active litigation – ranging from small claims court, Queens housing court, and Federal District Court – in all phases of litigation, such as drafting litigation documents/briefs, fact research, attending court conferences, preparing clients for depositions, and trial preparation. Possibility of directly representing clients in small claims court.
• Coordinate advocacy efforts, such as drafting letters advocating the increase of government services for LEP clients, meeting with government officials, and writing op-ed pieces in local newspapers.
• Conduct educational activities for community members on relevant housing, immigration, labor, and other important legal issues.
• Perform legal research and write memoranda/briefs on related legal issues.

Details of Internship
• Supervision: Intern is supervised by the Staff Attorney of labor and housing cases.
• Compensation: While internships are not paid positions, academic credit has been arranged in the past.
• Hours: Interns are expected to work part-time for a minimum of 10 hours a week.
• Duration: The internship runs from September to December 2011. Specific internship dates will be discussed in person.
 
Requirements
• Korean-language or Mandarin-language proficiency is required.

Internship applications are accepted on a rolling basis. Due to a high number of applications, only the applicants who are granted an interview will be contacted. Please submit a cover letter and resume via email to:

Grace Cho, Esq.
Staff Attorney
gracecho@minkwon.org

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