Graduate Teaching Fellowship

Description of the Fellowship

The Georgetown Domestic Violence Clinic (DVC) hires one clinical teaching fellow/supervising attorney each year for a two-year fellowship position. DVC fellows receive intensive, supportive mentorship as they develop skills in litigation, teaching, and legal scholarship; the program is a strong pathway to a permanent position in law teaching (clinical or doctrinal), as well as a deep dive into public interest practice.

DVC fellows develop skills as clinical teachers, supervising law students as they represent survivors of domestic abuse in civil protection order cases in D.C. Superior Court. As supervisors, fellows teach students to develop a range of skills—from building a strong and empathic attorney-client relationship; to acquiring litigation practice skills; to exploring legal ethics; to becoming creative problem-solvers, trauma-informed lawyers, and excellent storytellers. They help students critically examine the psychological dynamics of intimate partner violence, the harms inflicted by our society’s systemic and institutional responses to this social problem, and alternative solutions beyond the legal system.

DVC fellows also learn to be excellent classroom teachers, designing seminar classes on a range of topics, including child custody, professional ethics, and the individual and social dynamics of intimate partner violence. Faculty provide close support as fellows focus on how to navigate student learning challenges, develop their own teaching “voice,” and facilitate interesting, challenging, and thought-provoking conversations and classroom exercises.

Additionally, DVC fellows receive extensive training and mentorship as they continue to improve their own lawyering and litigation skills. Fellows provide direct representation to a small number of clients experiencing family abuse, primarily outside of the academic semester.

Fellows are offered extensive opportunities to engage in legal scholarship. DVC faculty and other Georgetown Law faculty provide a wide range of support to fellows interested in researching, writing, and publication.

First-year DVC fellows join the full community of Georgetown’s clinical teaching fellows in a course on clinical pedagogy collaboratively taught the Georgetown clinical faculty.

Preference will be given to applicants who have a background or demonstrated interest in family law, domestic or sexual violence, and/or poverty law, and to applicants who have trial experience. Applicants must be admitted to a Bar at the time they submit their application. A fellow offered the DVC fellowship position who is not a member of the D.C. Bar must apply for admission by waiver immediately following acceptance.

The full-time fellowship runs from early July 2026 through June 2028. The first-year salary is $70,000; the second-year salary is $75,000. Upon completing the fellowship, Georgetown awards fellows an LL.M. in Advocacy.

Georgetown University is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply, and will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, citizenship, color, disability, family responsibilities, gender identity and expression, genetic information, marital status, matriculation, national origin, race, religion, personal appearance, political affiliation, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Description of the Clinic

The Domestic Violence Clinic provides students with an intensive, challenging education in the art of client representation. It offers a range of learning and experiential opportunities, including trial advocacy, strategic problem-solving, professional identity development, and effective client-centered counseling. Through course work and client representation, students are exposed to every phase of expedited civil litigation. Students primarily work with clients seeking protection from abuse through the DC Civil Protection Order (“CPOs”) process. CPOs last for up to two years and can include a broad spectrum of relief designed to effectively end the violence in a family or dating relationship. For example, a CPO may direct a person who has engaged in abuse to cease assaulting, threatening, and stalking a survivor; to stay away from the survivor’s home, person and workplace; not to contact the survivor; and to vacate the parties’ shared home. It also may award temporary custody of the parties’ minor children, with visitation rights for the non-custodial parent, along with other relief that helps survivors obtain safety and security.

To prepare students to represent their clients, Clinic faculty provide intensive instruction in counseling, interviewing, fact investigation, evidence, civil procedure, and professional ethics, as well as the civil, criminal, and family law applicable to domestic violence litigation. In seminar, students explore a range of topics relating to social and legal responses to domestic violence. They participate in exercises designed to develop and refine essential litigation skills, such as conducting direct and cross-examinations, delivering opening statements and closing arguments, introducing exhibits into evidence, and negotiation. In addition, faculty work with students to develop a range of additional skills essential for professional excellence, including how to: communicate with various target audiences, exercise and convey empathy, engage in meaningful planning and reflection, collaborate across difference, and navigate the inherent uncertainty of legal practice. Students also use their client representation experience to explore how to increase access to justice for survivors and consider opportunities for systemic reform.

Students work in teams of two and represent several clients over the course of the semester. They are fully responsible for all aspects of client representation, from conducting the initial intake interview to investigating facts; counseling clients with a range of needs, goals, and concerns about their options; preparing witnesses for testimony; crafting trial materials; and negotiating with the opposing party. By assuming the role of lead lawyer and taking on the responsibilities that flow from that role, students have the greatest opportunity to grow into their strongest professional selves during Clinic. At the same time, each student team has frequent meetings with a Clinic faculty supervisor to review and discuss case challenges, litigation strategy, and other issues that may arise in the course of client representation. Students receive intensive feedback and support from their supervisors on all aspects of their client representation work.

In most cases, students have the opportunity to put on testimony from a client in an ex parte Temporary Protection Order hearing. In addition, most cases that cannot be resolved through negotiation are resolved through a contested trial. Trials can last several hours to several days and provide students with the opportunity to present witness testimony through direct examination, introduce exhibits into evidence (including photographs, text messages, voice mail recordings, and 911 call recordings), and deliver a closing argument. Students leave the Clinic with real expertise in working with clients and understanding the art of litigation.

Clinic students develop a wide range of essential lawyering skills, including:

• Providing highly effective client representation;
• Becoming creative, independent thinkers;
• Developing habits to unpack assumptions, foster curiosity, and understand the impact of trauma; and
• Increasing the effectiveness of civil interventions and helping clients navigate whether to engage with the criminal legal system.

As faculty, we pride ourselves on creating a warm and supportive community in the DVC. We provide both the educational scaffolding and the practical feedback students need as they make the transition from law student to practicing attorney. We are also fully conscious of our broader mentoring role: we deeply invest ourselves and our time in each of our students, we are dedicated to helping our students find their individual lawyering voices, and we are available to our students long past graduation and into their lawyering careers. Our students are committed to each other as well; every semester, there’s a real sense of family in the DVC. We strive to make the DVC classroom a place where all students are treated with respect. We welcome individuals of every age, background, belief, ethnicity, social class, gender, gender identity and expression, national origin, documentation status, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, ability, and any other visible/nonvisible difference. We expect each member of our DVC community to contribute to a respectful and inclusive environment for every other member. Although individuals will have different ideas and to disagree, each of us needs to lean into consideration of a variety of perspectives, beliefs, and experiences that differ from our own.

Application Process

Please submit the following materials by email to dvclinic@law.georgetown.edu(This link opens in a new tab) by Monday, February 2, 2026:

1. The Domestic Violence Clinic Fellowship Application Form
2. Your responses to the essay questions (see application form)
3. Current resume
4. Two letters of recommendation
5. Law school transcript