Where to find lawyers for our fellowship?

September 14, 2015 2:18 PM

You are a criminal defense lawyer in the English- or French-speaking world looking for fellowship opportunities abroad. Is there a specific website or mailing list where you'd be likely to look?

My nonprofit offers several 3-to-4 month fellowship opportunities every year, which allow experienced criminal defense attorneys to travel to certain developing countries and train local lawyers in criminal defense. (Rent, travel, and a stipend are all covered.)

We would like to do a better job of publicizing these fellowships, especially among Francophone lawyers but also just generally. We keep thinking that we must be missing some obvious avenue for this; we post on Idealist and to several small listservs, but it's all a little haphazard.

So, where should we be posting these things, in order to get the attention of defense lawyers interested in a short-term fellowship abroad?

posted by showbiz_liz to Work & Money (7 answers total)

For Canada, I would contact the provincial Bar Associations that are members of the CBA. In particular, the Quebec bar is going to have francophone lawyers as their audience, but other provinces are also likely to have some bilingual lawyers practicing. I don't know if they'd allow you to post listings for out-of-province fellowships on their job boards, but if nothing else they should be able to put you in touch with their local criminal law practice group to help you find the right avenues of communication.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:54 PM on September 14, 2015

Networking. If you're looking for an experienced (or even young but not totally INexperienced) criminal defense attorney to take a fellowship like this (a sabbatical of some kind?), you'd be well-served if you could get some kind of credibility by working through professional organizations. You could reach out to individual attorneys at those organizations, explain your project, and ask them to send out an announcement via the various professional mailing lists that exist. You could also reach out to criminal defense bloggers and ask them to let you post about it. Networking may also alert you to folks who for some reason or another are already moving to the countries you focus on, and are looking for work.
posted by Nx at 3:53 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

I assume you've already tried the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers? That and the ABA are the only national organizations I can think of that would reach the people you wish to reach. Most of us are more likely to belong to more local organizations -- in California, it would be California Attorneys for Criminal Justice (CACJ) or California Public Defenders Association (CPDA). I imagine every state has similar organizations.

I am more or less in the demographic you are after (criminal defense attorney with 22 years of experience) and I would never see your postings if they went out via law schools or Idealist. If I were specifically looking for the information I would probably look to NACDL or the ABA. The best chance of my seeing it, though, would be if it were publicized by one of the state-specific organizations.
posted by xeney at 4:02 PM on September 14, 2015 [3 favorites]

You could try Public Service Jobs Directory
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 4:33 PM on September 14, 2015

The Foundation Center is a major clearinghouse for grants:

Established in 1956, Foundation Center is the leading source of information about philanthropy worldwide. Through data, analysis, and training, it connects people who want to change the world to the resources they need to succeed. Foundation Center maintains the most comprehensive database on U.S. and, increasingly, global grantmakers and their grants — a robust, accessible knowledge bank for the sector.

posted by Little Dawn at 4:56 PM on September 14, 2015

Almost every county in the country is going to have a Criminal Defense Bar Association of some sort, if not several. The county I live in has at least three, plus a statewide one (the aforementioned CPDA). Almost every one of these Association will have a mailing list for active members.

Contact the president of these association and ask them to post an informational email about the fellowship. You'll reach lots.

(memail me if you want contact info for the local, Southern California, associations I would send it to.)
posted by bswinburn at 6:26 PM on September 14, 2015

In Wisconsin I'd send it to WACDL, which is the Wisconsin affiliate of NACDL. They have an active listserv and I'm sure it would get distributed. I'd also consider reaching out to state bars to see if they have a criminal law section or division to advertise to...and are you considering public defender agencies? They're some of the best criminal defense attorneys around and would probably love a fellowship like this if they could get time off.
posted by notjustthefish at 6:57 PM on September 14, 2015