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Working At IJ

Institute for Justice

Working At IJ

Values and Culture
Benefits and Perks
Our Offices
Our Teams
Open Positions

Values and Culture

At IJ we aim to make the world a better place by helping our clients live their lives free from government interference and nothing is more central to IJ’s successes than our culture and values.

Entrepreneurial

We value employees who are always thinking of new ideas and new ways to further our mission.

Positive and open

We focus on solutions, not problems, and always with a glass half full mindset. We operate in an open and straightforward way, with no hidden agendas or pretense. We are who we are.

Principled

In a world where it is easy to follow what’s popular or convenient, we stick to the core principles that IJ was founded on.

Resilient

We’re often up against long odds, but we recover quickly from setbacks, acknowledging our team’s efforts and boldly proclaiming our mantra of “Onward!”

Real world

While ideas and philosophy undergird our work, we translate that into action that helps real people, real communities and real businesses live and operate freely.

“I get to have a direct impact on the world while working with my best friends. When I get mad about something in the news, my first instinct is to do something about it--and, surprisingly often, I actually can.”

Bob McNamara
Senior Attorney

Benefits and Perks

Medical, vision, dental, life, and long-term disability insurance

401k plan and a 4 percent employer match

Ample vacation and personal time + 11 paid holidays

Monthly in-house happy hours

Freedom Fridays (hello, casual day!)

Commuter benefits

“The most rewarding part of my job is that when I come into work every day I am making a huge impact on someone's life and am part of the effort to keep someone’s property in their hands or their right to earn a living intact.”

Rachel Hannabass
Events Coordinator

Our Locations

The Institute for Justice is headquartered in Arlington, VA—just seven miles from the heart of our nation’s Capitol. With our office spanning the entire floor of our building, we like to say that we have an entire city block solely dedicated to fighting for individual liberties.

We also have five state offices and the IJ Clinic on Entrepreneurship in Chicago.

Learn more about our state offices and IJ Clinic!

Arizona Florida Minnesota Texas Washington IJ Clinic on Entrepreneurship

“People who visit our offices sense something special. The energy and enthusiasm for what we do and who we represent is immediately evident. Our esprit de corps is tangible. Even the architecture of our office reflects how we operate: contemporary and open; inviting interaction. Visit the Institute for Justice and you’ll recognize an efficient sense of purpose animating the organization.”

Chip Mellor
Chairman of the Board of Directors and Founder

Our Teams

The Institute for Justice is more than just a law firm—we also offer opportunities in public policy research, community outreach and activism, communications, production, design, operations and administration, and development. Check out our different teams and see where you could have meaningful impact every day.

Activism

IJ’s activism team works to empower and mobilize entrepreneurs, property owners and parents to advocate for their rights. We manage multiple grassroots campaigns at the state and local levels, draft online and media content, testify in the courtroom, organize trainings and public demonstrations, and develop promotional materials and information campaigns, all to provide activists with the tools and strategies needed to effectively fight for their rights both in their communities and in the statehouse.

Administration

IJ’s administrative team keeps the organization firing on all cylinders, ensuring every team is able to excel in its respective role. We’re also responsible for IJ’s training programs, speaking engagements and external conferences—ensuring attorneys, law students, undergraduate and master’s candidates, and other liberty-minded individuals are able to learn from and partner with IJ on multiple levels.

Communications

IJ’s communications team helps IJ shape and share its message with supporters, the media and the general public. Through sophisticated media relations, and appealing production and design, we help personalize, humanize and dramatize IJ’s message in the court of public opinion, specifically through earned media coverage and engaging publications and videos.

Development

IJ’s development team ensures that IJ has the financial resources it needs to pursue its mission. We’re responsible for raising IJ’s budget each year by soliciting donations from current and new individual and foundation donors. We also maintain relationships with supporters, providing them with regular updates on IJ’s efforts and what their contributions are making possible in our fight for liberty.

IJ Clinic on Entrepreneurship

IJ’s Clinic on Entrepreneurship trains and educates future lawyers to be fierce small-business advocates. Based at the University of Chicago Law School, we pair law students with entrepreneurs to offer free, top-notch transactional and regulatory legal assistance. When we’re not helping our clients draft contracts, negotiate financing or navigate a maze of regulatory red tape, we’re hosting events to expand our impact beyond our clients or building coalitions to address laws that hold small businesses back.

Legislation

IJ’s legislation team engages in carefully selected efforts across the country to pass pro-liberty legislation and defeat anti-liberty legislation by employing IJ’s arsenal of legal analysis, strategic communications, activism and research. Sometimes we stand alone at capitols as the only advocates of government reducing the things it does. In other cases, we join forces with other organizations to advance liberty.

Litigation

IJ’s litigation team does more than just write briefs or research case law; we find and meet with clients, talk with reporters, write model legislation, and record podcasts and videos. We’re also in oral arguments in state and federal courts, taking depositions, working with expert witnesses, and developing IJ’s next cutting-edge legal theory.

Strategic Research

IJ’s research team brings data-driven policy and social science research to IJ’s big litigation issues. Our work informs policy debates nationwide, and we love digging into detailed data and coming up with creative solutions to hard problems. And we stop at nothing—not even suing the IRS—to get the information we need for our research.

“I am able to meet people where they are and discuss real issues that they’re facing. IJ is more than professionals talking about problems. We’re actually on the ground working with people to change their lives for the better, in the here and now.”

Melanie Benit
Activism Manager

Open Positions

The Institute for Justice employs over 100 staff in seven states. Find your place on the IJ team!

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