UN Legal Internships

The United Nations Legal Internship Programme was established as a channel through which university students, who have completed at least four years of full-time legal studies at a university and who are interested in international law, could be assigned to work with the Office of Legal Affairs (OLA).

The programme is open to candidates from all countries. While internships are offered throughout the year, interns can join only during the annual intake periods in January/February or June/July for an initial period of three months.

To allow for high visibility and interaction with the principal areas of OLA’s work, it is not possible to accept more than one intern per regional grouping at any one time.

Qualifications

Qualifications:

• Have completed, at minimum, the first year of an undergraduate programme;
• Be enrolled in a graduate school programme, or have graduated within two years of beginning the internship;
• Be computer literate in standard software applications.

Skills

There’s nothing like the thrill of arguing a case in court. From the moment you enter the room, it feels like a chess match is about to take place. You’re in a courtroom with the judge, lawyers from both sides, and an audience with spectators you can’t see but are sure are watching every move you make. The only thing missing is a real game of chess. But anyway, there’s something really cool about arguing a case in court! That’s what we want to do—we want to argue cases before judges at law courts—and we want to be good at it!

So far we’ve been studying up on things that are part of our argumentation skills set. For instance: how do legal arguments differ from preposterous ones? Do they have different openings and endings? How should your writing style reflect this difference? And what other kinds of arguments do lawyers use?

Proficiency in one or more of the working languages of the United Nations (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish).

To be accepted as an intern at the United Nations, you need to be fluent in one of its working languages. These are English, French, Chinese, Spanish, Russian and Arabic.

The UN has many official languages because it needs to communicate with all the countries that are members. But there are only six working languages used for meetings and documents.

If you can’t speak one of these languages well enough yet, don’t worry – but you should plan on learning it before applying for an internship at the UN!

Very good knowledge of a modern office software package.

A modern office software package comprises of a word processor, spreadsheet, and a presentation application.

Understanding of the general terms and concepts is essential. You will be able to use a wide range of the features of one or more packages. For example, you can create brochures and flyers with text, formatting, images, page layout and more using different features in Word or Google Docs.

Your working knowledge should include:

• Using appropriate fonts for your document;
• Changing font sizes;
• Inserting photos;
• Changing the page orientation from portrait to landscape;
• Adding page borders;
• Aligning text (left/right/centre) on a line or paragraph basis;

Excellent verbal communication skills.

The ability to communicate verbally in a clear, concise and professional manner is essential. This includes the ability to listen to and understand the other person, express your own ideas and opinions, speak in a way that is easy for others to understand as well as having good grammar and vocabulary.

Very good writing skills.

Many of the work you will do as a lawyer is dependent on your writing skills. If you are looking to get into law, then having good writing skills is essential. With this in mind, it is important that you take every opportunity to improve your writing skills. This can be done through taking an un internship in a law firm. Through this internship, you will be able to learn how to write better by practicing your writing and getting feedback from those who have years of experience in doing so.

Another way that this internship will help you improve on your writing skills is by giving you access to all the resources that are necessary for learning how to write well. The un internship will give you access to many resources such as online classes, books and other materials that can help you learn about the different types of legal documents and their uses. These resources can also teach you how to properly structure a legal document so that it is effective and readable by others who may not have any knowledge of the subject matter at hand.

UN Legal Internships are a great option for aspiring lawyers

The UN is always on the lookout for bright young minds to help further the organization’s mission. You can get your foot in their door by applying for one of their many legal internships, which are open to undergraduate and graduate students of any nationality who have an interest in international law.

With a legal internship at the UN, you’ll have a unique opportunity to gain real-world experience while also making important connections with industry professinals. Interns will be able to work under the supervision of highly educated and experienced lawyers at one of the most prestigious organizations in the world.

If this sounds appealing, you’re probably wondering how to get started applying for these jobs (and there are many!). The best place to look is on the United Nations careers website, where they post all current UN job openings. When you go there, make sure that you click “legal officer” under “job fields” so that only legal jobs appear (there are a LOT of other types of positions at the UN). Once they’ve been filtered, scroll through until you find internships that are currently accepting applications.