Employment Opportunities

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.

Benefits and Perks

Health

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

Savings

401k plan and a 4 percent employer match

PTO

Ample vacation and personal time + 12 paid holidays

Hybrid

IJers can work from home up to two days each week and take up to four remote work weeks each calendar year

Casual

Jeans and sneakers are welcome

Flexible Hours

Create your own schedule around our core office hours

“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

“There’s so much to love about working at IJ, but what I appreciate the most is that people care about me as a person and about my professional growth. There is a genuine spirit of cooperation and shared goals, all revolving around IJ’s mission and values! This creates a family environment where everyone is there for each other.”

Calvin Bates

Assistant Director of IT

“Each day of work at IJ serves a real purpose to someone somewhere. When I go home at the end of the day, I know it was time well-spent.

I enjoy working at IJ with people who have similar outlooks on life. We’re all working together with defined goals in mind. It’s rare for every single person in an office to share the same enthusiasm and passion for wanting to see real change in the world. No one is motivated by money, and that makes all the difference.”

Kenzie Jaicomo

Donor Relations 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.

IJ’s Headquarters
Regional Office

Open Positions

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

View Openings

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.

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Working at IJ