We invite current law students from New York-area law schools or with New York-area summer internships to apply to our fourth annual Law & Organizing Academy (LOA). This year, LOA will take place on May 21-22, June 20, July 11, and July 25, 2025 in various locations in New York City and one day in upstate New York. LOA 2025 is jointly organized by The Action Lab (TAL) and NYU Law’s Initiative for Community Power.
The Law and Organizing Academy (LOA) connects students with organizers and scholars to learn about the fundamentals of organizing, social change, law and political economy, political education and to analyze current campaigns for economic and racial justice. LOA brings law students for a short course of study to build community and learn key frameworks and skills at the intersection of organizing, law, and political economy. Amid the escalating and interlocking crises that define our current moment, progressive law students are seeking ways to practice law that builds movement power. Yet law schools rarely provide space to interrogate the relationship between law and organizing, and there are even fewer opportunities to come together to forge solidarity across institutional boundaries.
ABOUT THE ACADEMY
LOA began in 2022, when a small cohort of about a dozen law students came together at TAL in Ossining, New York. In 2023, LOA expanded to over forty law students from different schools and moved to the Borden Estate in upstate New York. The 2025 LOA has a new structure to (1) limit barriers to participation by maximizing our time in NYC and (2) deepen our connections to each other and the content by adding continuing education days throughout the summer so there’s a feedback loop between the Academy and your internship.
The schedule for LOA 2025 is as follows:
Wednesday, May 21 (half day)
Thursday, May 22 (full day)
Friday, June 6: Happy Hour
Friday, June 20 (noon to 6pm)
Friday, July 11 (noon to 6pm)
Friday, July 25 (noon to 6pm)
Topics covered will include organizing frameworks, introduction to law and political economy, racial capitalism and the state, theories of social change, power-building, learning from practitioners and campaigns for racial and economic justice.
Sessions are led by a mix of LPE academics and organizers and leaders from NYC-based organizations like Make the Road New York and the Center for Popular Democracy. Previous faculty have included Ana María Archila (former Co-Executive Director for the Center for Popular Democracy and Co-Founder and former Co-Executive Director of Make the Road New York and Make the Road Action), Corinne Blalock (Executive Director of the Law and Political Economy Project and Associate Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School), Marika Dias (Managing Director of the Urban Justice Center), Veena Dubal (Professor of Law at University of California, Irvine School of Law), Andrew Friedman (Director of Initiative for Community Power at NYU School of Law), Jennifer Hernandez (Lead Organizer at Make the Road New York), Amy Kapczynski (Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Faculty Director of the Law and Political Economy Project and co-founder of the Law and Political Economy blog), Biju Mathew (co-founder of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, Chris Nielsen (Assistant Director of Education at National Nurses United), Marbre Stahly-Butts (Co-Founder and former Executive Director of Law for Black Lives), John Whitlow (Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Community and Economic Development Clinic at CUNY School of Law), Jawanza James Williams (Community Organizer and Campaigner, and Political Science PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center), and more.
Beyond the formal sessions and workshops, LOA also offers law students the resources and time to engage in critical reflection on the role of law in social change, build relationships with each other during meals and on breaks, and seek informal mentorship from faculty and organizers during the length of the retreat.
LOA is free to attend and includes food. For our day in upstate NY, LOA will reimburse train travel from NYC.
As mentioned earlier, this year’s LOA follows a new format with two grounding days before your internship starts and three continuing education days throughout the summer. To participate in the program, you must attend all of the dates bolded above.
The deadline to apply is Friday, February 28, 2025.
HOSTS:
The Action Lab is a strategy center for social movements that sparks political and personal liberation. We provide rigorous and joyful spaces for organizers, leaders and artists to learn, to create and to strengthen our capacity to win. We strive to build a powerful culture that lifts us out of the immediate and enables us to envision and realize our way to a just future.
The Initiative for Community Power at NYU combines the weight and assets of a global academic institution with deep community partnerships and decades of high-impact community organizing and power-building work. The Initiative catalyzes analysis, innovation, and project work to create a more equitable, democratic, and racially just society. The Initiative works closely with non-profit, academic, and government partners to reimagine the parameters of the possible, and to transform our vision of dynamic democracy, rooted in racial and economic justice, into reality. The Initiative is housed in the Center on Race, Inequality and the Law at NYU School of Law.
HOW TO APPLY:
LOA students will primarily come from partner organizations, who send their interns to LOA at the start of the summer. We will also have some spots for other current law students who have a demonstrated interest in power-building work and/or social change. Please note that we are only accepting applications from students attending New York-area law schools or interning in the New York area in summer 2025, due to the geographic focus of the Academy.
To apply to LOA, please fill out the online application (Google Form) no later than Feb. 28, 2025.
Application Materials:
Cover letter/personal statement: This statement, which should not exceed one page double-spaced, should detail the applicant’s interest in and experience with 1) power-building work and/or 2) social change.
Resumé.
Please reach out to Daniela Tagtachian at dat9851@nyu.edu with any questions or accessibility requests.