In the same vein as the Summer of Code program, Google has announced the 2009 Policy Fellowship program for students of legal and related subjects.

According to the blog posting by Google's Jen Marsh (Policy Analyst) and Joe Sexton (Fellowship Coordinator), the Policy Fellowship seeks to attract “undergraduate, graduate or law students interested in the world of tech policy.”

In 2008, the first group of fellows “worked for ten weeks last summer at public interest organizations involved in debates on broadband and access policy, content regulation, copyright reform, consumer privacy, and open government.” 

This year, selected fellows will receive a stipend (of $US 7,000) to spend ten weeks contributing to the public debate on a variety of technology policy issues.  Marsh and Sexton identify broadband policy, copyright reform and open government as likely topic of interest.

This year, a number of major US-based policy groups have agreed to participate (many for the second time) including The American Library Association, The Cato Institute, The Center for Democracy and Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Creative Commons.  In total, there are fifteen organisations involved in the US and Canada.

The applications page may be found at the link above.  Although the blog doesn’t say it, presumably there is one fellowship at each of the fifteen organisations.  Oh, and you need to be a current student who is eligible to work in the US or Canada.

Good luck.