You become a civil rights lawyer the way you become any attorney: law school, then a license from the bar admission authority in the state where you plan to practice — BLS notes lawyers typically need a law degree and a state license, which usually requires passing a bar examination.
What makes the field distinct is everything after admission: the clinics, clerkships, honors programs and first jobs that steer lawyers toward civil rights employers in firms, government and nonprofits.
What does a civil rights lawyer do?
Civil rights lawyers work on the laws that protect people from discrimination and from violations of their constitutional rights.
The label covers several different jobs rather than one: representing individuals who bring claims over discrimination or misconduct by public institutions, defending the employers and agencies that get sued, enforcing civil rights laws from inside government, and litigating impact cases meant to change how a rule applies across an entire system.
The day-to-day work looks like other litigation practices — investigating claims, taking depositions, briefing motions, negotiating settlements, trying cases.
The difference is the subject and the opponents: the claims draw on constitutional provisions and anti-discrimination statutes, and they are directed at institutions — government agencies, employers, schools, jails and prisons — and at the policies those institutions operate under.
Impact litigation adds a longer horizon: a single case can be aimed at a practice that affects a whole class of people rather than one client's outcome.
Titles matter less than settings in this field: the same case name can describe a firm associate's docket, a government enforcement attorney's caseload or a nonprofit lawyer's impact suit.
To see where the practice sits on the wider map, our guide to types of lawyers profiles the major practice areas, and attorney careers covers the profession as a whole — licensing, duties, job titles and pay.
Who hires civil rights lawyers?
The field's employers fall into four broad groups, and the same claims can appear on several of their dockets at once.
- Law firms. Plaintiff-side firms bring discrimination and misconduct claims against employers and public institutions; defense firms answer those claims for the organizations that get sued. Firms are where the profession as a whole works — BLS's 2025 breakdown put legal services at 52% of lawyer employment, with self-employed lawyers at another 11%.
- Government. Federal civil rights jobs sit inside the federal attorney workforce, whose largest concentration of general attorneys is the Department of Justice at nearly 13,000 — the most of any federal executive-branch agency, per the ABA's 2024 Profile (December 2023 figures). Federal attorney jobs are classified in the GS-0905 General Attorney series, covering trial work, legal advice to an agency and drafting regulations. Beyond the federal government, the PSLF rules count state, local and tribal government employers in the same qualifying category — a sketch of the public-sector levels where this work also sits.
- Nonprofits and legal aid. Public interest organizations litigate test cases and represent people who cannot pay for a lawyer. It is a small slice by headcount: the American Bar Foundation's 2005 Lawyer Statistical Report — still its latest — put legal aid and public defender work at 1% of the profession. Our legal aid attorney guide profiles that role, and public interest law careers covers the wider sector.
- In-house legal departments. Companies employ lawyers as employment and workplace counsel — civil-rights-adjacent work on complaints, accommodations and compliance handled inside the business. For the employer-side version of that job, see employment attorney careers.
One line splits the field economically: government and 501(c)(3) nonprofit employers qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, while private, for-profit law firms never do.
What that is worth is in the break-in section below.
What background and coursework help?
On paper, the credentials are the ones lawyers typically need.
BLS lists the typical entry-level education for lawyers as a doctoral or professional degree — the J.D. — and notes that lawyers typically need a law degree and a state license, which usually requires passing a bar examination.
Specialization in civil rights work is built through the record you assemble around the degree.
The clearest published checklist of what an employer in this field screens for comes from the federal government.
In selecting entry-level attorneys through its Honors Program, the Department of Justice weighs demonstrated commitment to government service, academic achievement, leadership, journal, moot court and mock trial experience, clinical experience, past employment and extracurricular activities.
It is one employer's published criteria — use it as a template for the record a public-service résumé is built from, not as a survey of what every civil rights employer weighs.
Translated into a law-school plan: take the doctrinal courses this litigation runs on — constitutional law, employment discrimination, evidence and procedure; write for a journal or compete in moot court or mock trial, the signals on DOJ's published list; and get into a clinic with real clients and real deadlines while the credits still count.
If you are still choosing the field itself, our guide to choosing a practice area walks through how lawyers test an area before committing to it.
How do lawyers break into civil rights work?
The routes into the field that the sources document run through three doors.
- Summer work that converts. BLS notes successful completion of a summer job or internship during law school may result in an employment offer after graduation. In this field the auditions are public interest organizations, government agencies and plaintiff-side firms — our guides to summer associate programs and getting a job as a lawyer cover the mechanics.
- Judicial clerkships. BLS describes clerkships as typically a specified length of time — such as 1- or 2-year terms — that help law school graduates develop skills required for a legal career. Our judicial clerkship guide walks the application process.
- Government honors programs. Federal attorney positions sit in the excepted service under Schedule A, so they are not filled through competitive-service examining — agencies hire directly. The Department of Justice's Attorney General's Honors Program, running since 1953, is its entry-level attorney recruitment program. Eligibility is limited to graduating law students and recent graduates who entered a judicial clerkship, graduate law program or qualifying legal fellowship within 9 months of graduation. For the 2026–2027 cycle, the application ran through DOJ's CORA system from Aug 28, 2026 to Sept 8, 2026; DOJ's published timeline puts interview invitations in early October, interviews from late October to mid-November, and offers from November on.
Size the federal door honestly before you plan around it: NALP counted new graduates hired by the federal government (excluding clerkships) down 37.0% for the Class of 2025 — from nearly 1,100 in the Class of 2024 to about 690.
The number argues for treating honors programs as one door among several, not the plan.
Two smaller levers are worth knowing too.
Federal "law clerk trainee" appointments exist for law graduates pending bar admission and may not exceed 14 months.
And geography compounds: 65.6% of employed Class of 2025 graduates worked in the same state where they attended law school, per NALP — for this field, that puts weight on building your clinic and contact network in the state where you want to practice.
The field's economics make loan forgiveness part of the decision.
NALP's Class of 2025 median starting salaries: $75,000 in public interest and $81,000 in government, against $155,000 in private practice and a record $100,000 national median across all sectors — up from $95,000 for the Class of 2024.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness is the federal program built for that gap.
It forgives the remaining balance on eligible Direct Loans after the equivalent of 120 qualifying monthly payments made while working full-time for a qualifying employer, and full-time means an average of at least 30 hours per week across one or more qualifying jobs.
Qualifying employers include federal, state, local and tribal government entities and 501(c)(3) nonprofits — private, for-profit law firms are excluded — with one nuance: other nonprofits can qualify through "public interest law," which the rule defines as legal services funded in whole or in part by a local, state, federal or tribal government.
You must still be working full-time for a qualifying employer both when the 120th payment is made and when you apply for forgiveness.
Our PSLF for lawyers guide covers the loan types and repayment plans that qualify, and public interest lawyer salary covers the pay side in detail.
PSLF rules changed on July 1, 2026
Job market and demand
Start with the honest limit: BLS counts lawyers as one occupation and does not break employment out by practice area, so BLS publishes no count of civil rights lawyers and no growth figure for the field.
What the data covers is the profession this field lives inside.
The profession itself is large.
BLS counted about 863,700 lawyer jobs in 2025 and projects employment to grow 5% from 2025 to 2035 — faster than the average for all occupations — with about 28,700 openings a year on average, many from replacing workers who retire or change occupations.
BLS expects some routine legal work to be automated but does not expect that to reduce overall demand for lawyers.
Public service is a measurable slice of the entry-level market: NALP measured the Class of 2025 about 10 months after graduation, and public service employers (government, judicial clerkships, public interest) accounted for 31.0% of Class of 2025 jobs obtained — government 12.0%, judicial clerkships 10.0%, public interest 9.0% — while 60.9% of employed graduates took private-practice jobs.
On pay, quote the series with the number.
BLS's median annual wage for lawyers (SOC 23-1011) was $159,670 in May 2025 — the lowest 10% earned under $78,360 and the highest 10% over $351,600 — and those figures exclude self-employed lawyers and owners and partners of unincorporated businesses, so they do not describe solo or partner income.
NALP's starting-salary distribution is bimodal rather than a smooth curve: for the Class of 2024, 53.0% of salaries fell between $55,000 and $100,000, with a second peak at the prevailing BigLaw salary.
The sector medians in the break-in section above are the honest comparison for this field: public interest and government sit below the private-practice median at the start of a career.
Where to find attorney jobs
For this field, look in three places: law firm career pages, government and agency portals, and nonprofit job boards.
On this site, attorney jobs lists current law firm openings.
Career information, not legal advice: the pay figures on this page are BLS and NALP statistics, and the loan-forgiveness details come from the federal PSLF regulation — confirm current program rules with the U.S. Department of Education before you rely on them.