OK, everybody is worried about jobs, internships. It does not matter you are 1L, 2L, 3L or associates, or partners. Everybody is at risk. I, for one, don't have a job for the summer. yet. I hope something will come up. But I got a better idea, why not start your own student-run public interest organization (SPIO)?

Business Model of the SPIO: Chasing the Ambulance

Instead of begging internship/jobs from the status quo public interest organizations, we can just do the jobs they do, but much better. We can literally chase the "ambulances", e.g. court houses (including housing court, family court, probate court, traffic court, immigration court etc), admin agencies (e.g. city, state and federal agencies), police stations, shelters, prison-bound buses stops. We can find the clients where the clients needs legal aid the most. I am sick and tired of all these public interest organizations telling you that they got all the man power they need, which is obviously a white lie. There are millions of people who need help desperately and don't know where to turn to. If we can find our own client, we at least have work to do. When Ray Bekerman (author of RIAA v People Blog) came here to give a talk, he asked how come there is not organization at Columbia to help those who are sued RIAA. Our SPIO is that kind of organization which can do that kind of job. In essence, the SPIO is not a one trick pony, it is a proactive multi-service legal aid society.

How do We Get Paid?

At the start up phase, the SPIO won't get paid for its job. But that does not mean the student members are not getting paid. 1. we have the guaranteed funding for the summer. Once we persuade the law school the recognize SPIO as a bona-fide public interest organization, all will at least get paid for living expenses. 2. donation. If this works well, I am sure we can just use the old PILF trick to get some donors. 3. sanctions. I envision that SPIO will file its own suits and if we win, we will get paid by our adversaries. Once the organization is up and running, we can act sort of temp agency for all the public interest organization out there. We will have a talent pool including foreign language speakers of Arabic to Zulu, MDs, scientist, engineers, painters, musicians. If these public interest organization has something they cannot handle by themselves, they will call us. Of course, we need to share our costs with them if they can afford it.

Transform Internship into a Real Job

If this model works well, there is no reason the SPIO cannot evolve into a real public interest law firm (PILF). Why work for someone else if you have something passionate to work on and you want to be the general leading the battle?

-- XinpingZhu - 17 Mar 2009

---

I think this is an interesting idea, but I have to be honest, I'm not sure I understand completely how it would work. We can't actually provide legal aid without a license. Are there any SPIOs out there at other schools (although not necessary, it would be interesting to see how they function)? How would the temporary nature of the organization be handled - many cases and problems take longer than 3 years. I'm not trying to condemn your idea, but would be interested in hearing you explain this idea in greater depth.