Namati is dedicated to placing the power of law in the hands of people.

For billions of people around the world, the law is broken. It’s an abstraction — or worse, a threat — but not something we can use to exercise our basic rights.

Namati is building a global movement of grassroots advocates who empower people to understand, use, and shape the law. These “barefoot lawyers” form a dynamic, creative frontline that can squeeze justice out of even broken systems.

About the Fellowship

Namati is searching for a current or recently graduated law or graduate student who will support the improvement and expansion of the Lawyers for Resource Justice (LRJ) initiative as well as provide direct research and writing support to the Network team and Network members.

Overall, the Global Network Fellow will be responsible for the following-

Support to Lawyers for Resource Justice initiative

  • Conducting research around referral networks for large-scale development cases involving international financing.
  • Assisting with case intake and management.
  • Conducting preliminary investigation and legal research into potential cases.
  • Directly interacting with community representatives applying for assistance.

Research and writing

  • Designing resource guides and tutorials relating to key challenges facing our members – for example, dealing with cases of gender-based violence, evaluating the impact of legal empowerment programs, or exploring sustainable revenue streams.
  • Investigating the status and implementation of national legal aid frameworks, models for scaling up community paralegal services, laws relating to land ownership, natural resource management, statelessness/citizenship rights, and other live programmatic or organizational questions as they arise.

Network member engagement and support

  • Interviewing network members and writing in-depth case studies to document their experiences, results of which may help advocate with governments, major development institutions, donors, and civil society actors, while garnering recognition of cutting edge legal empowerment work.
  • Engaging with members on our community discussion forum on substantive topics.
  • Provide other support to the Global Network, as needed.

Compensation & Fellowship Length

This is a part or full-time position requiring a minimum of 12 weeks’ commitment (we are flexible with start dates).

Please note at this time we are only able to accept applications from individuals whose fellowship will be paid for through independent fellowship funding.  While we do recognize that interested interns/fellows may approach us during the process of actively applying for external sources of funding, due to the high volume of interest in our opportunities we look for our finalists to demonstrate that they can be resourceful and creative in securing funding and will not make excessive requests of our teams for support.

To Apply

Please complete our online application form, ensuring you upload a cover letter, CV, and 2 writing samples. Namati values clarity, specificity, succinctness, and authenticity in writing.

Please note we strongly prefer for your application materials (cover letter, CV, and writing samples) to be uploaded in one PDF.

Full details are here.