Spend a semester with ArchCity Defenders
ArchCity Defenders’ Wendy Werner Internship & Practicum Program is named in honor of our founding board chair, longtime career coach, mentor, and cherished friend, who passed away in January 2022 after a long battle with cancer.
To this day, Wendy’s influence still reverberates throughout our office, our work, and the positive impact we create in the lives of our clients and communities. In her spirit, we will continue to facilitate a place at ArchCity Defenders dedicated to the development of future leaders, thinkers, lawyers, and activists who will make the world better. Our internship & practicum program is one such place.
Since 2010, hundreds of students from St. Louis and across the country have been drawn to and supported ACD’s holistic legal advocacy as interns and practicum students. Whether that is working with attorneys on direct representation or civil litigation, assisting our social work staff in providing critical services to clients, advancing our organizing and campaign efforts, or contributing to our media and policy advocacy, interns and practicum students have had a meaningful impact with our clients and within this region we call home.
ACD interns and practicum students not only contribute during their internships; they sometimes become part of the dynamic staff at ACD and other law firms and organizations, go on to federal judicial clerkships, or earn prestigious fellowship positions.
Year-round, our interns leave big shoes to fill.
ArchCity Defenders provides academic calendar as well as summer internship, externship, and practicum opportunities for law students, social work students, paralegal students, communications and digital media students, graphic design students, graduate students, undergraduates, and more.
Internship & Practicum Opportunities
We appreciate your interest in the ArchCity Defenders internship program. We have three teams with Fall 2026 internship & practicum opportunities. If you do not see the team with which you want to work listed below, that means they no longer have any internship opportunities for the Fall 2026 semester.
We will open Spring and Summer 2027 application forms on Tuesday, September 8, 2026.
Legal
While continuing to provide holistic legal advocacy to those in St. Louis, ArchCity Defenders is working on broad-based change to the region’s criminal legal systems. One way we advance this change is through the use of impact litigation brought by our Civil Rights Litigation team on issues like debtors’ prisons, police misconduct, cash bail, and jail conditions. This litigation is primarily federal Section 1983 litigation, both class actions and individual.
While impact litigation has become an effective tool for change, ArchCity Defenders remains dedicated to changing our clients’ lives through individual representation. To this end, our Direct Representation teams represent clients in the following legal practice areas, among others: housing, consumer, criminal, and municipal. Our Direct Representation work is spread across two separate teams: one focusing on housing & civil advocacy and another focusing on providing defense in criminal and municipal proceedings. Both teams’ work helps to inform the work of the Civil Rights team.
The Housing & Civil Advocacy team provides representation to tenants and those experiencing homelessness in St. Louis, represents clients in expungement proceedings, and handles various other civil matters in Missouri’s state courts. This team primarily practices in Missouri’s civil courts, but occasionally appears in criminal, municipal, and federal courts.
The Criminal & Municipal Defense team provides direct defense representation for those facing criminal and municipal ordinance violation charges throughout the St. Louis region. This team appears in over 80 municipal and state courts.
Legal intern applicants select the team they prefer to work with but will have somewhat similar internship experiences across the board. However, an intern seeking more individual client contact will likely prefer to work with the direct representation team. An intern seeking federal court experience or lengthier motion drafting experience would likely prefer to work with the Civil Rights team.
All legal interns will perform fact and legal research to bolster our understanding of claims and issues; draft memos synthesizing findings as well as motions, pleadings, and other legal documents; assist with discovery and investigation; and interview and communicate with clients or class members. To the extent there are court hearings taking place during the internship hours, interns are encouraged to attend court proceedings with staff attorneys.
Legal interns function as a part of an interdisciplinary team and coordinate with attorneys and staff to support ArchCity Defenders’ mission and expand our reach. A successful intern needs to be assertive, independent, persistent, empathetic, proactive, flexible, and self-directed. They will need to take initiative, use problem-solving skills, see projects through to completion, and become a strong advocate for themselves and others.
Undergraduate students participating in legal internships will not receive the same types of assignments as law students. The intern will be able to engage in some research and drafting but will spend more time on discovery, document review, investigation, and administrative work. Undergraduate students are also encouraged to attend and observe court proceedings with staff attorneys. Please note that we are only able to host 2-3 undergraduate legal interns each term.
Communications
ACD’s Communications team educates the community about the organization’s mission, initiatives, and services; advocates for issues important to our client community; supports the legal work of ACD’s staff; provides a platform for our clients to share their stories on their terms; coordinates local, national, and international media relationships; and supports the marketing and fundraising efforts of ACD’s Development team. ACD’s media advocacy has been instrumental in exposing injustice, countering misrepresentation and distortion of poor people and people of color in mainstream media narratives, and impacting community conversation on issues impacting our region.
The Communications intern will work with the team to produce quality copywriting and editing for ACD’s print, digital, and social platforms, conduct research on social justice issues within ACD’s sphere of advocacy, and develop and execute innovative communications/media ideas that advance ACD’s mission.
The Digital Media intern will conceptualize and execute design projects, produce content for ACD’s website and social media channels, and assist in designing various digital and print materials.
Social SERVICES
Oftentimes, our clients’ contact with the legal system is due to laws, fines, and fees that are directly tied to the criminalization of being poor and/or Black and that contact has many collateral consequences for our clients and their families. The social services team’s work demonstrates how communities can reimagine public safety through a racial and social justice lens while creating pathways for individual self-determination and community empowerment.
ACD provides students with practicum experience at the intersection of law and social work and an opportunity to help build our social services program. Interns provide holistic, trauma-informed case management for clients, including housing support, access to identification, public benefits support, and transportation assistance, among other needs. The Social Services program also facilitates a Food Delivery program and ACD’s yearly Holiday Gift Drive.
Partnerships & Organizing
ACD’s Partnerships & Organizing (formerly Community Collaborations) team assists people directly impacted by systems of oppression to get civically engaged through political education and organizing and seeks an intern with an enthusiastic desire to assist and serve others. A successful intern or practicum student needs to be assertive, independent, persistent, empathetic, proactive, and flexible. They will need to take initiative, use problem-solving skills, see projects through to completion, and become a strong advocate for themselves and others. Helpful skill sets include prior organizing experience, graphic design, and/or administrative skills.
Fundraising, Grant Writing, & Development
ACD’s Development team educates the community and donors about the organization’s mission, initiatives, and services; advocates for issues important to our client community; supports the work of ACD’s staff by providing monetary, in kind, and volunteer resources; coordinates with local, national, and international funders; and supports the work of ACD’s Communication’s team.
ArchCity Defenders is looking for a development intern to join its dynamic and innovative development team. The intern will research, nurture, and develop relationships with funders and donors in support of the development team, enter information into our databases, and assist with planning and executing events to support our funding efforts.