Job Description
America faces a crisis of concentrated corporate power. At the Open Markets Institute, we believe this concentration of private power is a key driver of major ills in our society, from soaring inequality to the exorbitant cost of healthcare to the collapse of local newspapers to the slowing of socially beneficial innovation. The mission of the Open Markets Institute is to shine a light on these problems, to craft smart solutions based on America’s antimonopoly traditions, and to help antitrust enforcers and competition policy makers understand how to use their legal authorities to restore open and competitive markets.
The Open Markets Institute is excited to accept applications for the Louis Brandeis Law and Political Economy Fellowship Program. This is a fellowship for first-year law school students interested in using antitrust law, banking law and financial regulation, telecommunications regulation, corporate governance law, intellectual property law, and other legal tools to address concentrated power.
In addition, the Open Markets Institute organizes an Antitrust Law Student Network to connect with each other, with our experts, and with others in the field. This network is open to all current law students as well as to recent law student graduates. Email dill@openmarketsinstitute.org to be included or for more information.
Open Markets’ Fellowship Program and Antitrust Law Student Network aim to engage the growing interest among law students in antitrust law, as well as in America’s longstanding tradition of using legal tools to shape and promote a democratic, open, and vibrant political economy.
Summer fellowship overview
This fellowship will give preference to rising 2Ls (those who, in Summer 2025, will have completed their first year but not yet started their second year).
Law student fellows will assist with legal and policy work on a variety of issues related to antitrust law and anti-monopoly policy. This will include helping research and draft amicus briefs and comment letters to federal agencies, following relevant matters at the antitrust agencies and across courts, writing op-eds and blog posts, and assisting with Open Markets’ advocacy efforts.
Students will also have the opportunity to complete a project based on their own interests. In addition to guidance on and support for this project, fellows will have access to Open Markets’ network of leading antitrust lawyers and policy experts.
This is a full-time fellowship (40 hours per week) requiring a commitment of 10 weeks during the summer of 2025. Open Markets will provide a stipend of $8,000 and encourages fellows to secure additional support from their schools where available. We will also consider requests for additional need-based support on an individual basis.
Qualifications
Open Markets is looking for candidates who have (1) strong writing, research, and analytical skills and (2) a demonstrated interest in antitrust law and antimonopoly policy, including intellectual property law, banking law and financial regulation, telecommunications regulation, and corporate governance law, among other areas.
How to apply
Please submit a resume, references, and a cover letter (two-page maximum) describing your interest in antitrust law and competition policy and in Open Markets’ work. We ask that your cover letter include three questions relating to private power and law or policy that you think deserve deeper inquiry. Please also submit a legal writing sample (five-page maximum).
You may send your application to jobs@openmarketsinstitute.org with the subject line “Legal Student Fellowship Application.” No calls please.
Open Markets seeks applicants from diverse backgrounds.
Compensation
$800 per week for 10 weeks
About the Open Markets Institute
The Open Markets Institute is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that works to address threats to democracy, individual liberties, and national security from today’s unprecedented levels of corporate concentration and monopoly power. The Open Markets team of journalists, lawyers, and activists is widely recognized as the vanguard, in the words of the Financial Times, in “driving the debate” around both the nature of the threat posed by concentrated power and what to do about it. Open Markets uses research and journalism to expose the dangers of monopolization and identifies changes in policy and law to address them. Open Markets also engages with and educates leading policymakers, law enforcers, academics, movement groups, and other influential stakeholders on how to restore the market structures and corporate regulations that long formed the bedrock of American democracy. Open Markets also operates the Center for Journalism & Liberty, which is part of the Knight Research Network.
Job posted: February 14, 2025