Internships with the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services
Tennessee Department of Children’s Services Internship Opportunities (Statewide Internships available)
The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services is the state’s public child welfare agency, overseeing child protective services, permanency and juvenile justice. Our mission is to provide high quality prevention and support services to children and families that promote safety, permanency and well-being. Our vision is to create safe and healthy environments for children where they can live with supportive families and engaged communities. Our attorneys represent the Department of Children’s Services in dependency and neglect proceedings as well as delinquency matters. We handle a variety of matters ranging from termination of parental rights trials to review hearings for delinquency matters.
Our legal department is seeking interns in our central office in Nashville as well as our field offices in counties throughout the state.
• Our central office interns will work with our attorneys on projects involving policy, legislation, research and analysis, and litigation of administrative hearings and appeals.
• Our field office interns will have an opportunity to work directly on ongoing litigation. We are interested in tailoring an internship to provide meaningful legal experience to students while providing support to our attorneys.
Typical projects that interns will participate in may include drafting memoranda, meeting with clients, drafting pleadings and orders, analyzing policy and legislation, and attending hearings, trials, and administrative proceedings.
Our summer internships are voluntary full-time commitments for at least an eight-week term. We also offer part-time semester internships. This is a pre-appoved placemnt for Pro Bono credit at Memphis Law. You can also seek academic credit through the school’s externship program (must be pre-approved by Prof. Danny Schaffzin).
Volunteer interns will be expected to pass a background check and fingerprinting due to the sensitive and confidential information regarding families and juveniles that our office serves. Interviews are scheduled on a rolling basis.
We value continuous feedback from our interns and hope to provide meaningful legal training and experience through our internship program.
Interested students should email their resume to Carrie Searcy Carrie.Searcy@tn.gov
Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, 7th Floor UBS Tower, 315 Deaderick Street, Nashville, TN 37243 615.948.0820
