General Services Administration (GSA) Office of General Counsel Legal Internship Program (Summer/Fall 2022)
Position Title: GSA OGC Internship Program - Summer/Fall 2022
Position Description: General Services Administration Office of General Counsel Legal Internship Program
Summer and Fall 2022
The Office of General Counsel invites you to apply for legal internship opportunities at one of the most desired agencies to work for in the Government! We offer an exciting opportunity for highly-motivated law students to gain exposure to the work of General Services Administration (GSA) and a broad range of legal issues. These positions are volunteer (without compensation) but may be used for school credit.
GSA is an executive agency of the United States Government. GSA provides centralized procurement for the Federal Government, offering billions of dollars in products, services, and facilities. We also help keep the nation safe by providing tools, equipment, and non-tactical vehicles to the US military, as well as law enforcement, firefighting, and rescue equipment to state and local governments. GSA establishes policy for and provides management of Government property, including construction and operation of buildings; procurement and distribution of supplies; utilization and disposal of real and personal property; transportation, travel, and fleet management; and information technology resources.
The Office of General Counsel (OGC) is a team of attorneys and support staff that carries out all legal activities of GSA; ensures full and proper implementation of GSA's statutory responsibilities; and provides legal counsel to the Administrator, the Deputy Administrator, and other officials of GSA. The legal interns will be integrated with this team by working with closely with attorneys in one of the below described divisions. The interns can expect challenging legal research, analysis, and writing assignments in an array of practice areas, to include: administrative law; environment; personnel; ethics; procurement; real estate; construction; government travel; cybersecurity; litigation; and legislation. OGC also offers opportunities, when appropriate, for interns to attend court hearings and administrative proceedings and to participate in direct client contact.
The internship positions are assigned to the four divisions in the OGC's Central Office headquarters and the Mid-Atlantic Division. Descriptions of the practice areas of each division in Central Office, Ethics, General, Personal Property, and Real Property Law, and the Mid-Atlantic Division are provided below. Please indicate which division you are most interested in working with in your cover letter.
The Ethics Law Division (LE) manages the agency’s ethics training and education programs, offers counseling and advice, and administers the agency’s financial disclosure reporting programs. The successful applicant to the Ethics Law Division should expect to gain experience in the federal standards of ethical conduct, as well as criminal conflicts of interest, seeking and post-government employment restrictions, political activities (the Hatch Act), and more. The intern should also expect to support Division attorneys in their training and education efforts.
The General Law Division (LG) provides legal advice and litigation services to all GSA service and staff offices, and often to other federal agencies, in the areas of labor law, employee discipline, civil rights law (including employment discrimination), procurement law, fiscal law, administrative law, the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, legislation and employee standards of conduct. The Division's attorneys represent GSA in actions brought against it before the Merit Systems Protection Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, labor arbitrators, and the Federal Labor Relations Authority. LG also provides litigation support to the Department of Justice in cases brought against GSA in federal courts.
The Personal Property Division (LP) provides legal counsel to GSA’s Federal Acquisition Services (FAS), Office of Governmentwide Policy (OGP) and other internal GSA offices. LP attorneys advise on major client initiatives, such as GSA's innovative Government-wide contract for travel, purchase, and fleet card services; GSA's implementation of the comprehensive Network telecommunications contracts; and the rules for government travel, transportation, and employee relocation.
The Real Property Division (LR) provides legal counsel to each of the GSA Public Buildings Service’s (PBS) business lines, as well as the Office of Real Property within OGP. LR attorneys advise on commercial real estate practices, procurement law, environmental law, financing of federal projects, as well as regulatory review.
LP and LR attorneys provide litigation counsel and support for contract disputes filed with the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals (CBCA) or the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, bid protests filed with GSA, the Comptroller General of the United States or the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and other federal court actions.
The Office of General Counsel, Mid-Atlantic Division (LD3) provides legal advice to a large and diverse PBS and FAS client base located in the Mid-Atlantic Region, which includes Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia and parts of New Jersey and Virginia, on a wide range of matters. The intern can expect the work to focus primarily in the practice area of Government contracts, which would include procurements, protests, administrative matters and/or claims. The intern can also expect to get experience with real property law, personnel law, fiscal law and administrative law issues.
Internships are offered during the Summer and Fall of 2022. No paid internships available currently. At this time, the internship will be 100% telework (subject to change). Candidates interested in applying for more than one term, must apply to each term separately during the appropriate time frame for each period of interest. The internship program application timeline is provided below.
Requirements for GSA OGC Intern Applicants
· Cover Letter, Resume, Writing Sample (no more than five pages) and Unofficial Transcript. Please save all documents together as one PDF file.
· Interns must receive academic credit or participation approval from their law school.
· Internship dates are flexible. Please indicate your availability to work between 9:00am and 5:00pm.
· US citizenship required. Successful applicants must complete a background investigation and receive a favorable adjudication.
To apply, please submit the required documents to Kelli Cochran-Seabrook at ogcinterns@gsa.gov.
Application Timeline
Summer Internship Program 2022
February 11 – March 31, 2022
Accepting Applications
April 29, 2022
Recruiting closes with offers extended
May, 2022
Internship begins
Fall Internship Program 2022
March 1 – April 30, 2022
Accepting Applications
May 31, 2022
Recruiting closes with offers extended
August, 2022
Internship begins
Deadline: 4/30/2022
Eligibility: 1L, 2L, 3L
Location: Washington DC; Philadelphia, PA