Law Fellow Application Process
Thank you for your interest in being a Law Fellow. This web page describes the Law Fellow Program and the application process. A completed application includes:
- the online form (which asks for background information, a resume, an unofficial transcript, and a personal statement),
- an official transcript,
- a completed recommendation form.
I. Law Fellow Course Description
This unique program offers upper-class students the opportunity to assist first year law students in their transition to legal writing while also honing their own writing and analytical skills. In addition, the seminar explores substantive law, learning theory, and rhetoric as applied to legal analysis and legal writing. Law Fellow responsibilities include attending the Law Fellow Seminar; attending the first-year Legal Practice: Writing and Analysis class; and writing a substantial document analyzing the law of the spring brief problem. Law Fellows also write detailed comments on students’ written work, receive extensive feedback on those comments from their professor, and meet with students in individual conferences to discuss the students’ written work. The Law Fellow seminar is a two-semester, six-credit course that satisfies Georgetown’s Upper Level Writing Requirement.
II. Prerequisites for All Applicants
You must have at least a 3.0 grade point average at the beginning of the academic year in which you serve as a Law Fellow. You need not receive an “A” in Legal Practice: Writing and Analysis to become a Law Fellow.
You must be available to attend a special training program that takes place the week before classes begin.
You must arrange your interview schedule in the fall so that you are present at the entirety of Training Week, all Law Fellow seminars, and all of your students’ Legal Practice classes.
III. Application Process – Current Georgetown Law Students
Make sure your application includes the following materials:
1. Submit a completed online Law Fellow application form, including uploaded:
a. Resume
b. Personal Statement
Please attach a statement explaining why you would like to be a Law Fellow. You might tell us what experience you bring to the job, what value you see in the program, and/or what new ideas you have for the course. Please describe any working, teaching, public speaking, researching and writing experience that is especially relevant. In addition, please note in your statement any ways in which you would contribute to the diversity of next year’s group of law fellows. Please limit yourself to no more than two, double-spaced pages in no smaller than 12-point type. Also, please be sure that the file name for the file you upload begins with your last name and that your name appears at the top of your personal statement.
c. Writing Sample
If you are completing your first year at Georgetown Law, the faculty will look to your spring semester writing assignments holistically as a sample of your written work. There is no need to submit any additional writing samples with this application.
If you are completing your second or third (Evening Division) year, or if you are a transfer student, please submit a writing sample that has not undergone substantial editing by someone else or any Generative AI tool. For example, a final draft of a law journal note is not acceptable if it has been substantially edited by the journal staff. The faculty would prefer a writing sample that is more recent than your 1L spring Legal Practice exam, if possible. Please be sure that the file name for the file you upload begins with your last name.
d. Unofficial transcript
Applicants are required to attach an unofficial transcript of their grades at Georgetown law to their application. We will also seek your consent to request an official transcript from the Registrar, and we note that any inconsistency between the unofficial and official transcripts could result in your law fellow application being denied or charges of ethical violations.
2. Recommendation
If you are completing your first year at Georgetown Law, the form
will automatically seek a recommendation from your current law fellow. If you are an upper-class student, please put the name and email address of your former law fellow or a person who is familiar with your writing and leadership abilities into the form where it says “Law Fellow Name” and “Law Fellow Email.”
IV. Application Process—Transfer Students
If you are applying as a transfer student, please contact Prof. Michael Cedrone, mjc27@georgetown.edu, who will provide you with an application form to use. The form linked elsewhere on this page requires a Georgetown NetID and password and will not work for you.
V. Joint Degree Programs
If you are going to be off campus over 20% of the time next year, you cannot be a Law Fellow. If you wish to apply for the program the following year, we ask that you do so then. To expedite that process, you may want to ask your Law Fellow to fill out a recommendation now and have it delivered to you in a sealed envelope. You can submit this sealed recommendation when you apply.
VI. Deferrals
The Law Fellow application process occurs each year. There are no deferrals.
We appreciate your interest in the Law Fellow program.