Alumni

The Semester in D.C. Program promotes professional connections between upper-level law students who are pursing an externship in the Washington, D.C. area and our dedicated Pitt Law alumni and supporters. Our goal is to give you the opportunity to assist students directly in a way that is meaningful and convenient for you.

We have provided some suggestions for how you could get involved below, and we welcome any additional ideas. To get started, just email Professor Drew Roberts at pittindc@pitt.edu or complete the Alumni Participation Form. To learn more about some of the students who have benefited from the Semester in D.C. Program, check out our Alumni Spotlights. And to our many alumni who are already helping out, thank you. Your support makes all the difference for our students.

Get Involved:

  • Offer to be a point of contact for interested students.  It is helpful to students to have someone they can talk to by e-mail, phone, or in person, to learn about your area of work, your employer, or the D.C. job market generally. Just by being listed as a point of contact for your particular area of law, you can help support this program.
  • Volunteer to be an alumni mentor for students in the Semester in D.C. Program.  Each student in the Semester in D.C. Program is assigned an alumni mentor, who meets with him or her once a month. By volunteering your time, talents and expertise, you help to strengthen the program and provide opportunities to inform, engage, mentor and serve. Students value alumni mentors, and any time you have to give will be deeply appreciated, whether it’s a few minutes for an e-mail exchange or an hour for lunch. 
  • Sign up for our Speaker Series.  Each semester, we bring in a few alumni to speak to the students in our D.C. Seminar about their work and career paths, or to lead a lecture and discussion on a substantive legal issue. 
  • Tell your employer about us.  Might your employer be interested in hiring a Pitt Law student as a free, full-time intern? If you work for a non-profit or government employer, we’d love to add your office to our list of potential externship sites. Pass along our information to your office’s internship supervisor or director and see if they might not be interested in receiving applications from Pitt Law students. Information for employers is available here. Or just send us their name and email address, and we’ll do the checking.
  • Suggest other possible externship sites.  We may not know about all of the great places to work in D.C. – but you do. Are there some offices that do fascinating work in your field? Places where your friends and colleagues work that would offer wonderful opportunities for Pitt Law students? Pass their information along to us, and we’ll contact them to find out whether they want to participate in the program.
  • Support the D.C. Initiative Fund. Thanks to generous alumni contributions, we are able to offer several fellowships for participating students. Your contribution could fund more fellowships and enable more students to participate! It’s expensive to spend a semester in Washington. Students incur increased housing costs, metro fees, and other expenses to take advantage of the opportunities the Semester in D.C. Program offers. The D.C. Initiative Fund uses contributions from Pitt Law alumni and friends to support students participating in the Semester in D.C. program and to fund activities for D.C. area alumni. To contribute online, fill out Pitt Law's Online Giving Form. On the second page of the form, you will be asked whether you want to designate your gift for any particular fund. Check the "other" box and designate your gift for the "D.C. Initiative Fund” and/or “Semester in D.C. Program Alumni Fellowship.” You can also mail a check to the Law School with the same designations. 
  • Attend our events.  Every year, the D.C. Chapter of the Pitt Law Alumni Association holds at least one event where you can meet our current students and talk to us about the program. 
  • Join our LinkedIn group. On our Pitt Law Semester in D.C. LinkedIn group, we post Washington area job opportunities, event information, and program announcements.
  • Share what you know.  Are you on an e-mail list with information about meetings or jobs? Do you belong to an association in which students or new attorneys could participate? These sources of information are invaluable to students – tell us about them, and we’ll pass the information along and post it on our LinkedIn page.

Please let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to working with you to support our students.