NJOAG Honors Program Informational Session

Sep 27, 2023 06:00 P.M.

Are you a law clerk or third year law student interested in making a big impact in New Jersey? Come join us for our Honors Program informational webinar on 9/27 and learn about the ways you can kickstart your career in public service.

Applications for the 2024 New Jersey Attorney General’s Honors Program are now being accepted. Click here to apply.

Honors Program Summary

The two-year NJOAG Honors Program allows participants to work in one of the following subject matter areas:

• Civil Rights
• Reproductive Health Rights
• Firearms Civil Enforcement and Accountability
• Social Media Accountability and Data Privacy/Cybersecurity
• Environmental Justice and Enforcement
• Workers’ Rights and Labor Enforcement
• Solicitor General Fellow
• Public Integrity, Conviction Review, and Police Policy
• Violence Intervention and Victim Assistance
• Youth Justice
• Sexual and Domestic Violence Policy, Prevention, and Enforcement
• Violence Suppression and Organized Crime
• Cyber Crimes
• Human Trafficking

Depending on their interests, the participants will be assigned to one or more of the following divisions within the Office:

• Division of Law (DOL), which brings civil enforcement actions and advises state agencies;
• Division of Criminal Justice (DCJ), which prosecutes criminal cases and oversees criminal justice policy within the State;
• Division on Civil Rights (DCR), which enforces the State’s civil rights laws;
• Division of Consumer Affairs (DCA), which protects consumers and investors from fraud; and
• Office of Public Integrity & Accountability (OPIA), which investigates corruption and works to strengthen confidence in our criminal justice system.

In addition, the Solicitor General Fellow assignment will be within the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) and working directly with the Solicitor General.

Honors Programs attorneys will have opportunities to help formulate policy and legal strategy, investigate cases, draft legal pleadings, negotiate with opposing counsel, and argue in court or before administrative bodies. In addition, the Honors Program class will attend workshops and trainings that will help develop their legal skills and introduce them to the full range of work performed by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office.  

Applications for the 2024 Honors Program class are due by 11:59 p.m. on October 13, 2023.

To learn more, please continue to read below. To complete the online application, click here 

To learn more about the 2022 and 2023 Honors Program members, click here. 

Subject Matter Areas

Applicants must select which of the subject matter areas they wish to be considered for:

• Civil Rights
• Reproductive Health Rights
• Firearms Civil Enforcement and Accountability
• Social Media Accountability and Data Privacy/Cybersecurity
• Environmental Justice and Enforcement
• Workers’ Rights and Labor Enforcement
• Solicitor General Fellow
• Public Integrity, Conviction Review, and Police Policy
• Violence Intervention and Victim Assistance
• Youth Justice
• Sexual and Domestic Violence Policy, Prevention, and Enforcement
• Violence Suppression and Organized Crime
• Cyber Crimes
• Human Trafficking

Applicants may select as many or as few issue areas as they like; if they select more than one, they should rank their preferences in the online application. Applicants interested in the Solicitor General Fellow may add that to their ranked choices or may choose to apply only for that position.

If admitted to the Honors Program, the participants decide whether they wish to specialize in a particular issue area or “rotate” through one or more other topics. Typically, rotations occur in the second year of the Honors Program.

The office location of the Honors Program participant will depend on their selected issue area.

• Newark
  • Civil Rights
  • Reproductive Health Rights
  • Firearms Civil Enforcement and Accountability
  • Social Media Accountability and Data Privacy/Cybersecurity
  • Workers’ Rights and Labor Enforcement
  • Solicitor General Fellow*

• Trenton
  • Environmental Justice and Enforcement
  • Public Integrity, Conviction Review, and Police Policy*
  • Violence Intervention and Victim Assistance*
  • Youth Justice
  • Sexual and Domestic Violence Policy, Prevention, and Enforcement
  • Violence Suppression and Organized Crime
  • Cyber Crimes
  • Human Trafficking

* assignment may be Trenton, Newark, or Northern New Jersey.

Telework and In-Office Work

As of July 1, 2022, State employees are on a hybrid schedule of three days of in-office work, and two days of telework under a pilot program administered by the New Jersey Civil Service Commission through June 30, 2024. This policy will be reviewed for continuation, and is subject to change.

Subject Matter Area Descriptions

• Civil rights. Program participants will develop legal, regulatory, and policy strategies to protect the civil rights of New Jersey’s residents. They will enforce the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and the New Jersey Fair Chance in Housing Act, two of the strongest civil rights laws in the country, and will also work on immigration, bias and hate, and reproductive rights matters, some involving the federal government.
• Reproductive Health Rights. Program participants will help enforce the statutory protections put in place following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs for all individuals seeking and providing reproductive health care in New Jersey. Participants will also be able to participate in the work of the AG’s Reproductive Rights Strike Force bringing together civil and criminal enforcement and security resources to further protect reproductive health in New Jersey.
• Firearms Civil Enforcement and Accountability. Program participants will have an opportunity to work with the Division of Law and Statewide Affirmative Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Office to enforce the State’s nation leading firearms laws. This includes public nuisance legislation intended to hold gun manufacturers and dealer accountable for violations of the law that harm the health and safety of New Jersey residents. Attorneys will also enforce and work on options to better utilize New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act, one of the strongest consumer protection statutes in the country.
• Social Media Accountability and Data Privacy/Cybersecurity. Program participants will develop legal, regulatory, and policy strategies to hold social media platforms accountable for failure to adequately safeguard users from social media that negatively impacts users’ mental health, facilitates violence, and promotes harmful content such as bias/hate. Participants also will have the opportunity to work on investigations and enforcement actions involving data breaches and the unauthorized collection, use, and dissemination of participants’ personal information.
• Environmental Justice and Enforcement. Program participants will enforce a wide range of federal and state environmental laws, including against major environmental polluters across the state and in overburdened communities. This may include matters involving violations of the State’s water and air pollution laws, and hazardous and solid waste rules. Participants can also expect to work on multistate legal efforts to strengthen, and to combat efforts to limit, existing federal environmental protections.
• Workers’ Rights and Labor Enforcement. Program participants will oversee investigations and enforcement actions involving New Jersey’s laws protecting workers, including laws regarding wage theft, misclassification, prevailing wage, labor trafficking, child labor, mistreatment of laborers, and other issues that affect worker mobility and economic opportunity.
• Solicitor General Fellow. The Solicitor General Fellow will work with the Solicitor General in developing strategy for high-priority cases, drafting briefs in appeals and dispositive motions, and participating in argument preparation and moot courts, in a dynamic and fast-paced environment. The Fellow will also have the opportunity to deliver oral argument. The Fellow will be involved with multiple appeals at every level of the federal and state judiciary, including in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Fellow will be exposed to all subject areas within the Honors Program, among others, across their appellate portfolio – with a special focus on the defense of New Jersey laws from constitutional challenges.
• Public Corruption, Conviction Review, and Police Policy. Program participants will investigate and prosecute criminal abuses of the public trust, including allegations of bribery and other political corruption, and civil rights violations involving law enforcement officers, including allegations of excessive force.  Program participants may also have the opportunity to review claims of actual innocence, investigate those deemed meritorious, and draft findings for review and decision by the Attorney General. Finally, participants may work on policy matters relating to policing.
• Violence Intervention and Victim Assistance. New Jersey has recognized that public safety solutions cannot rely on solely on enforcement, but must also encompass community-based solutions and trauma-informed interventions. In recent years tens of millions of dollars have been dedicated to supporting the work of hospital and community-based violence intervention work.  Program participants will have the opportunity to support that work through innovative policy and process creation, training and implementation. Attorneys will also get to build out department-wide victim access procedures.
• Youth Justice. Program participants will work directly with the Juvenile Justice Commission and other state agencies to implement recommendations from the statewide Youth Justice Taskforce Report, issued pursuant to Governor Murphy’s Executive Order No. 42 (2018), to continue the transformation of New Jersey’s youth justice system into a more just and equitable system. Participants will also work with the Office of Justice Data and the Division of Criminal Justice on alternative diversionary programs for youth.
• Sexual and Domestic Violence Policy, Prevention, and Enforcement. Program participants will work within the Division of Criminal Justice to focus on the eradication of sexual and domestic violence. This will include developing trauma-informed policy and trainings related to domestic and sexual violence investigation and prosecutions and implementing victim-driven diversionary programs for certain domestic violence offenses.
• Violence Suppression and Organized Crime. Honors Program members placed in this area will work with the Division of Criminal Justice’s Violence Suppression and Organized Crime Unit, which investigates and prosecutes organized criminal enterprises operating throughout New Jersey with the goal of protecting the community from the dangerous activities of these enterprises, ranging from criminal street gangs to traditional organized crime.
• Cyber Crimes. Participants will be placed in the Division of Criminal Justice’s Cyber Crimes Unit and will focus on preventing, investigating, and prosecuting various technology-based crimes, including child exploitation crimes and investigations of online predators, network intrusions, denials of service, malware, and other forms of cyber-attacks. The Unit works directly with the New Jersey State Police’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit and other task forces, including participating in the New Jersey Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
• Human Trafficking. Participants will be placed within the Division of Criminal Justice’s Human Trafficking Unit, which combats the crime of Human Trafficking through education, collaboration, and the aggressive prosecution of criminal networks that trade in people and exploit them for profit. Honors Program members will work with law enforcement officers to identify the signs of trafficking; coordinate statewide efforts to identify and provide services to victims; and help raise public awareness through public outreach and educational materials.

Eligibility Criteria

The Attorney General Honors Program seeks a diverse pool of highly qualified applicants and is open to all:

• Third-year law students;
• Students in the final year of other graduate law programs (e.g., LLM program); and
• Judicial clerks who will complete their clerkship by September 2024, and who began the clerkship immediately following graduation from law school or a fellowship program.
• Individuals who will complete a fellowship by September 2024, and which began immediately following graduation from law school or clerkship.

Attorneys who do not meet these criteria but are nonetheless interested in working for the Attorney General’s Office are welcome to apply through the regular employment application process. For more information, click here.

Application Process

To apply for the Honors Program, applicants must submit an online application by 11:59 p.m. on [date]. As part of the application, applicants will need to upload the following documents:

• Writing sample. The writing sample should be no more than 5,000 words and should contain your own legal analysis. You may use a document drafted during law school or a summer internship so long as it does not contain material that is privileged or otherwise confidential or contains the necessary redactions.
• Statement of interest. Applicants must submit a “statement of interest,” explaining in no more than 1,000 words why they are interested in participating in the Honors Program. The Honors Program seeks candidates of diverse backgrounds and experiences, and candidates are encouraged to use the statement of interest to explain how their life experiences inform their interest in public service.
• Resume. Applicants should attach a current version of their resume.
• Scanned copy of law school transcript. Applicants may upload an official or unofficial copy of their transcript.

Applicants are not required to submit letters of recommendation; however, they must  identify at least two professional references (including at least one law professor or other legal academic) who can vouch for the applicant’s qualifications.

In completing the online application, applicants must select one or more of the subject matter areas to work in.

• Civil Rights
• Reproductive Health Rights
• Firearms Civil Enforcement and Accountability
• Social Media Accountability and Data Privacy/Cybersecurity
• Environmental Justice and Enforcement
• Workers’ Rights and Labor Enforcement
• Solicitor General Fellow
• Public Integrity, Conviction Review, and Police Policy
• Violence Intervention and Victim Assistance
• Youth Justice
• Sexual and Domestic Violence Policy, Prevention, and Enforcement
• Violence Suppression and Organized Crime
• Cyber Crimes
• Human Trafficking

Applicants may select as many or as few issue areas as they like; if they select more than one, they should rank their preferences in the online application.

Applicants interested in the Civil Rights and Reproductive Health Rights subject matter areas may choose to split their two-year commitment between the two, and focus one year in each area.

Applicants interested in the Solicitor General Fellow may add that to their ranked choices or may choose to apply only for that position. Applicants are also asked to indicate their level of interest in litigation, investigations, and regulatory policy, as well as their preference for civil or criminal law.

We will gladly assist applicants who are unable to complete an application online or who are in need of an accommodation during the application process. If you need assistance, please email honors.program@njoag.gov

Selection Process

All applications will be reviewed by an Honors Program selection committee, which consists of senior attorneys in the Attorney General’s Office. Candidates will be selected on the basis of several factors, including:

• Academic achievement and scholarship;
• Legal writing, research, and advocacy skills;
• Demonstrated interest in, and commitment to, public service; and
• Leadership in school and/or community activities.

Based on a review of the application, selected candidates will be invited to a virtual or in-person interview in Newark or Trenton beginning in October 2023.

Offers will be extended in December 2023 and January 2024. All offers are subject to successful completion of the candidate’s background investigation. Honors Program participants will begin work in September 2024.

Those selected for the Honors Program must:

• Commit to two years of service with the Attorney General’s Office;
• Undergo a background check before beginning employment;
• Within 6 months of starting the program become a member of the New Jersey Bar, which may require you to pass the New Jersey bar exam;
• Within 12 months of starting the program, establish residency in New Jersey or obtain an exemption from the residency requirement under the New Jersey First Act, NJSA 52:14-7.

The Attorney General’s Office is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to inclusive hiring and dedicated to diversity in our staff. State law prohibits discrimination in hiring or employment on the basis of race, creed, color, national origin, nationality, ancestry, age, sex, marital status, pregnancy status, affectional or sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, atypical hereditary cellular or blood trait, or mental or physical disability. For more information about diversity and inclusion initiatives within the Attorney General’s Office, click here: https://www.njoag.gov/programs/diversity-inclusion/

Salary & Benefits

The starting salary for Honors Program participants depends on whether they are admitted to the New Jersey bar at the start date for employment.

• If admitted to the New Jersey bar at the time of employment, an Honors Program attorney begins work as a Deputy Attorney General, at an annual salary of $87,578.62.
• If not yet admitted to the bar, an Honors Program participant will be hired into a limited term position as a “Law Clerk” at an annual salary of $59,494. Once admitted to the New Jersey bar, the participant will be promoted to Deputy Attorney General at an annual salary of $87,578.62.

All Honors Program participants, whether Deputy Attorneys General or Law Assistants, are entitled to employment benefits, including health and dental insurance. For more information on employment benefits, visit www.state.nj.us/treasury/pensions.

Timeline and Checklist

• August 31, 2023: Application period opens
• October 13, 2023: Deadline for submitting online application
• October 2023: Applicants notified if they are selected for interviews
• October 2023 – December 2023: Interviews
• December 2023 – January 2024: Offers extended
• September 2024: Start date for employment
• By 11:59 p.m. on October 13, 2023, candidates must complete an online application, which includes:
• Writing sample (no more than 5,000 words)
• Statement of interest (no more than 1,000 words)
• Resume
• Law school transcript
• Ranked preferences for practice areas
• At least two references, including one law professor or other legal academic.

Downloads

Solicitor General Fellow Flyer – click image to download