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The Jack Nelson Legal Fellowship

2013-2014 Application Deadline: Dec. 10, 2012

The one-year Jack Nelson Fellowship for a recent law school graduate honors Reporters Committee founder Jack Nelson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, who for many years was Washington bureau chief of The Los Angeles Times. Nelson, who died in 2009, is a former chair of The Reporters Committee Executive Committee, and served on its Steering Committee for 25 years.

The Jack Nelson Legal Fellow will monitor significant developments in state and federal freedom of information law, assist with legal defense requests from reporters, prepare legal memoranda, amicus briefs and other special projects. He or she will also write for The Reporters Committee's publications, the quarterly magazine The News Media & The Law, and the weekly newsletter, News Media Update.

The fellowship lasts for one year (September to August), with a stipend of $40,000, plus fully-paid health benefits.

To be eligible for the program, candidates must have earned a law degree no later than August 2013, and should plan to take a bar examination in any state by August 2013. Significant experience in print or electronic news reporting, and strong legal research and writing skills are required.

There is no application form. Candidates must submit the following no later than December 10, 2012:

  •     cover letter
  •     resume
  •     names, addresses and phone numbers for three references
  •     news clips
  •     short legal writing sample

(Note: One application can be submitted for both this fellowship and the Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Legal Fellowship.)

Please address applications to:

Bruce D. Brown
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
1101 Wilson Blvd., Suite 1100
Arlington, VA 22209

or to:

fellowships@rcfp.org

(If sending by email, all documents must be in the form of Word documents or PDFs.)

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