Congratulations To The 2024 Skadden Fellows

The Skadden Fellowship program has funded almost 1,000 fellows over the past 35 years.

The New York offices of Skadden Arps at One Manhattan West (photo by David Lat).

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‘Tis the season for… fellowship announcements. Two prestigious fellowship programs that I track each year, the Bristow Fellowships in the U.S. Solicitor General’s Office and the Skadden Fellowships for public-interest work, notify recipients shortly before Thanksgiving—giving some talented young lawyers something extra to be thankful for.

I haven’t gotten the names of the new Bristow Fellows yet (please drop me a line if you can help), but I do have the names of the new Skadden Fellows. The Skadden Fellowship Foundation announced the fellowship class on its website, and Staci Zaretsky covered the news last week on Above the Law.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, these prestigious fellowships, the public-interest version of Supreme Court clerkships, allow law school graduates and outgoing judicial law clerks to spend two years working full-time in the public interest. This year the Skadden Fellowship program celebrated its 35th anniversary, and it has funded almost 1,000 fellows over the past three and a half decades. Here’s some information about the latest fellowship class from Above the Law:

These 28 graduating law students and judicial clerks will work in 17 cities in 13 states across the United States, focusing on such issues as disability rights, education equity, housing, immigrants’ rights, loan borrowers’ rights, LGBTQ+ healthcare rights, and environmental law.

For the 2024 class of fellows, Yale led the way with eight fellows, Berkeley produced three fellows, and Havard, NYU, Penn, and American minted two. The remaining law schools each placed one graduate into the program—including two newcomers to the list, the University of Iowa College of Law and the Hofstra University School of Law.

As with Supreme Court clerkships, a single year isn’t necessarily representative. I think it’s more helpful to look at which schools have produced Skadden Fellows over the past 15 years, so I’ve posted that information below. Here are the top ten:

1. Harvard – 70
2. Yale – 64
3. NYU – 37
4. (tie) Stanford - 23
4. (tie) UCLA – 23
6. (tie) UC Berkeley – 21
6. (tie) U. Penn. – 21
8. University of Michigan – 15
9. Georgetown – 14
10. Columbia – 13

There’s definitely a correlation with law school prestige, with all ten of these schools in the top 15 of the U.S. News ranking. But just outside the top ten in Skadden Fellowships are Northeastern, at #11, and CUNY, at #12. As noted by a commenter on last year’s Skadden Fellows post, Northeastern and CUNY significantly outperform their U.S. News ranks—#71 and #154, respectively—which lends credibility to their branding as public-interest-focused institutions.

It just goes to show that different law schools excel at different things. In case you’re curious, the five schools in the top 15 that are not in the top ten for Skadden Fellowships are U. Chicago, Duke, UVA, Northwestern, and Cornell. They (or their graduates) happen to have different priorities: all five are top ten schools for Biglaw placement, and three out of the five—Chicago, UVA, and Duke—are top ten schools for federal clerkships. (Note, however, that you can clerk and then do a Skadden Fellowship post-clerkship, or vice versa.)

Congratulations to the 2024 Skadden Fellows, and thanks to them—as well as Skadden Arps, which founded the program in 1988 and continues to fund it—for all they do to advance the public interest.

Below please find lists of (1) all law schools that have produced Skadden Fellows over the past 15 years and (2) the 2024 Skadden Fellows and their sponsoring organizations.

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LAW SCHOOLS WITH SKADDEN FELLOWS (2010-2024 FELLOWSHIP CLASSES)

American University – 6
Boston College – 2
Boston University – 2
Chicago – Kent – 1
City University of New York – 9
Cornell – 1
Columbia – 13
Denver – 1
DePaul – 3
Duke – 4
Florida International University – 1
Fordham – 6
Georgetown – 14
GW – 2
Harvard – 70
Hofstra - 1
Howard – 1
Indiana – 2
John Marshall (Chicago) – 1
Loyola (Chicago) - 1
Loyola (Los Angeles) – 3
Michigan State – 3
Northeastern – 11
Northwestern – 7
NYU – 37
Roger Williams – 1
Rutgers – 3
Seattle – 1
Stanford – 23
Suffolk – 1
Tulane – 1
University of Arkansas – 1
UC Berkeley – 21
UC Davis – 2
UC Irvine – 4
UCLA – 23
U. Chicago – 6
University of Connecticut – 1
University of Illinois – 1
University of Iowa - 1
University of Kansas – 2
University of Maryland – 3
University of Miami – 1
University of Michigan – 15
University of Oklahoma – 1
U. Penn. – 21
University of South Carolina – 1
University of Texas – 3
University of Tulsa – 1
UVA – 5
University of Washington – 1
Valparaiso – 1
Vanderbilt – 4
Villanova – 1
Washington & Lee – 2
Wash U. – 4
Wayne State – 1
Widener – 1
William & Mary – 1
William Mitchell – 1
Yale – 64

TOTAL: 426

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SKADDEN FOUNDATION — 2024 SKADDEN FELLOWS

Jacob Abudaram
University of Michigan Law School
ACLU, Disability Rights Program
Washington, DC
Use strategic impact litigation under the Americans with Disabilities Act to push government agencies to be more disability-inclusive in disaster planning and navigating emergencies.

Catherine Blalock
American University Washington College of Law
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Washington, DC
Challenge systemic barriers to higher education impeding low-income students, first-generation students, and students of color — namely legacy admissions and rigid standardized test score requirements.

Helen Carstarphen Malley
Yale Law School
ACLU of Alaska
Anchorage, AK
Impact litigation, legislative advocacy and community education to advance a state constitutional right to shelter and promote access to shelter.

Grace Choi
Yale Law School
ACLU, Immigrants’ Rights Project
New York, NY
Implement a multi-pronged legal project to mitigate systemic barriers and hostile federal policy that currently narrow access to asylum.

Julio Colby
Harvard Law School
Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition
Nashville, TN
Direct representation, systemic advocacy, and community outreach and education to low-wage immigrant workers. Will leverage Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement to secure immigration relief for workers and pressure state labor agencies to enforce and improve workplace protections.

Chelsea Diaz
Northeastern University School of Law
New Economy Project
New York, NY
Direct representation, community education, and policy advocacy support to community-based organizations seeking to advance and sustain nonprofit community land trusts.

Mariam Elbakr
University of California, Berkeley School of Law
Public Justice Foundation – Debtors’ Prison Project
Washington, DC
Direct representation and impact litigation on behalf of indigent defendants and families harmed by the assessment of excessive public defender fees in Tennessee.

Sophia Fenn
University of California, Berkeley School of Law
New York Legal Assistance Group
New York, NY
Represent underserved New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) tenants who face severe habitability issues caused by NYCHA’s systemic divestment and neglect.

Diego Fernández-Pagés
Yale Law School
Make the Road New York
Brooklyn, NY
Address exploitation of immigrant workers of color in Westchester County by mobilizing two novel legal tools — a reporting app and Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement — to inform legislative advocacy, impact litigation and workplace organizing building collective, democratic power.

Rebecca Harris
Yale Law School
National Veterans Legal Services Program
Arlington, VA
Direct representation, community outreach and education and policy advocacy to the families of veterans with serious disabilities seeking caregiver benefits or appealing unfavorable decisions from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Maya Hiebert
New York University School of Law
ACLU of New Jersey
Newark, NJ
Direct representation in administrative appeals, strategic litigation, and policy advocacy on behalf of New Jersey parents to enhance parental rights in the child welfare system.

Malik Jarvis
New York University School of Law
Project on Predatory Student Lending
Boston, MA
Policy advocacy, outreach and litigation to protect borrowers’ rights and reduce the burden of Parent PLUS loans on low-income families, with a particular focus on Black families.

Alexandra Johnson
Yale Law School
ACLU, LGBTQ & HIV Project
New York, NY
Bring impact litigation and develop public education materials to challenge and address state Medicaid programs’ prohibitions of and limitations on providing gender-affirming care.

Sara Kamouni
Harvard Law School
Justice Center of Southeast Massachusetts
Brockton, MA
Provide immigration legal services and launch the first centralized, digital resource hub in southeast Massachusetts. Will deliver community programming that harnesses community members’ skills to meet their legal needs through a combination of attorney assistance and self-help.

Allison Nasson
University of Pennsylvania Law School
Oregon Law Center
Portland, OR
Direct representation and community education to unhoused Oregonians with disabilities, who are experiencing heightened levels of policing despite the state’s failure to provide adequate, accessible shelter.

Chelsea Naylor
American University Washington College of Law
Whitman-Walker Health
Washington, DC
Direct representation, education and outreach, and systemic reform to promote the health, safety, and well-being of LGBTQ+, especially transgender, youth.

Anna Belle Newport
Columbia University School of Law
Family Justice Law Center
New York, NY
Affirmative litigation and strategic appeals to challenge illegal family separations and surveillance conducted by the Administration for Children’s Services in New York City. Will conduct outreach and training with local community networks of impacted families.

Luke Norquist
Stanford Law School
Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy
Saint Paul, MN
Launch an initiative that combines litigation, administrative action, and policy advocacy to help low-income residents of a Minneapolis neighborhood contest industrial pollution.

Ferida Osman
Hofstra University School of Law
Central American Refugee Center of New York (CARECEN NY)
Hempstead, NY
Provide removal defense and affirmative asylum representation to especially vulnerable Afghan immigrants to support their successful resettlement in Long Island.

Shyamala Ramakrishna
Yale Law School
A Better Balance
New York, NY
Direct legal services, strategic litigation, and legal education to fight employers’ use of new technologies that deny New York’s low-wage workers in the manufacturing, logistics, and retail sectors their rights under federal, state and local laws.

Ben Rodgers
Yale Law School
Central West Justice Center
Springfield, MA
Legal representation of migrant child workers with immigration, employment and family law needs. Will collaborate with local nonprofit community organizations to provide empowering educational programs.

Barbara Rodriguez
University of Iowa College of Law
Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice
Des Moines, IA
Legal representation, community outreach, and know-your-rights trainings for detained noncitizens as well as immigrants living in remote, rural communities across Iowa who are at high risk of being deported.

Isir Said
Yale Law School
CAIR Legal Defense Fund
Washington, DC
Direct representation, public education and policy advocacy to vindicate the rights of low-income Muslim women who have had their religious head covering forcibly removed while in police custody.

Mia Stange
University of California, Berkeley School of Law
Brooklyn Defender Services
Brooklyn, NY
Direct representation in employment law and immigration matters to immigrant workers with a focus on identifying and representing noncitizen workers eligible for Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement.

Nneka Ugwu
Loyola University School of Law, Chicago
Equip for Equality
Chicago, IL
Legal representation, outreach and training, and policy advocacy of Black students with disabilities in Illinois to address persistent disproportionality of exclusionary school discipline.

Elaina Vermeulen
University of California, Los Angeles School of Law
California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice
Oakland, CA
Direct representation of and advance advocacy campaigns to protect detained immigrants vulnerable to solitary confinement. Provide oversight and monitoring to ensure compliance with California laws.

Mikaela Wolf-Sorokin
University of Pennsylvania Law School
Nationalities Service Center
Philadelphia, PA
Legal representation to indigent individuals detained in ICE custody who have ties to Montgomery and Delaware counties. Expand resources for pro se post-conviction relief petitions for immigration-related due process violations.

Henry Zhu
Northwestern University School of Law
National Immigrant Justice Center
Chicago, IL
Direct representation, outreach, legal education and impact litigation to halt attempts by the government to deny asylum protections to low-income immigrants who have suffered past persecution or fear future persecution on account of their membership in a cognizable particular social group.

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