Congratulations to the Newest Class of Skadden Fellows

In addition to being one of the world’s most successful law firms, Skadden is also a public-spirited one. The firm just donated $100,000 to Haiti relief efforts, for example. (More on that later.)

In addition, the firm supports public interest work through the Skadden Fellowship Program:

The Skadden Fellowship Foundation, described as “a legal Peace Corps” by The Los Angeles Times, was established in 1988 to commemorate the firm’s 40th anniversary, in recognition of the dire need for greater funding for graduating law students who wish to devote their professional lives to providing legal services to the poor (including the working poor), the elderly, the homeless and the disabled, as well as those deprived of their civil or human rights. The aim of the foundation is to give Fellows the freedom to pursue public interest work; thus, the Fellows create their own projects at public interest organizations with at least two lawyers on staff before they apply.

Fellowships are awarded for two years. Skadden provides each Fellow with a salary and pays all fringe benefits to which an employee of the sponsoring organization would be entitled. For those Fellows not covered by a law school low income protection plan, the firm will pay a Fellow’s law school debt service for the tuition part of the loan for the duration of the fellowship. The 2010 class of Fellows brings to 591 the number of academically outstanding law school graduates and judicial clerks the firm has funded to work full-time for legal and advocacy organizations.

The 2010 class of Skadden Fellows was just announced. Congratulations to the 27 winners, selected from 20 different law schools. Yale had four, Berkeley (aka Boalt Hall) had three, and Stanford and Fordham had two each.

Check out their names, law schools, and sponsoring organizations — maybe you know some of them? — after the jump.

The list of Skadden Fellows appears below. For more detail about the projects they’ll be undertaking, see here. To learn about the application process — perhaps you’d like to apply in the future? — see here.

SKADDEN FELLOWS — 2010

Veronica Allen
Duke University School of Law
Georgia Legal Services Program – Macon Regional Office

Avni Bhatia
New York University School of Law
Advocates for Children of New York

Eunice Cho
Stanford Law School
National Immigration Law Center

Meredith Desautels
University of California, Boalt Hall School of Law
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area

Daniel Hafetz
Fordham University School of Law
Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A, Community & Economic Development (CED) Unit

Nicole Hallett
Yale Law School
Urban Justice Center, Community Development Project

Jonathan Harris
City University of New York School of Law
Manhattan Legal Services

Rebecca Heller
Yale Law School
Urban Justice Center – Iraqi Refugees and Returning Veterans Project

Elizabeth Joynes
Fordham University School of Law
LatinoJustice PRLDEF

Lauren Lowe
Vanderbilt University Law School
Equip for Equality

Sarah McBroom
William Mitchell College of Law
Legal Aid Service of Northeastern Minnesota

Charlotte Noss
Northeastern University School of Law
The Wage Justice Center

Nicole Ochi
Loyola Law School Los Angeles
Asian Pacific American Legal Center

Anya Prince
Georgetown University Law Center
Cancer Legal Resource Center

Amy Retsinas
University of Pennsylvania Law School
Rhode Island Legal Services, Inc.

Kathleen Rubenstein
University of Chicago Law School
Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law

Samuel Salganik
Columbia University School of Law
Community Service Society of New York

Amy Saltzman
University of Virginia School of Law
Maryland Disability Law Center

Heather Scheiwe
Northwestern University School of Law
Center for Conflict Resolution/Resolution Systems Institute

Jacqueline Silva Sánchez
Stanford Law School
Greater Boston Legal Services/Harvard Immigration & Refugee Clinic

Robert Silverman
Yale Law School
Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI)

Jenna Statfeld
Harvard Law School
Education Law Center

Michael Tan
Yale Law School
ACLU Immigrants Rights Project

Angela Turner
University of California, Boalt Hall School of Law
Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles

Shira Wakschlag
University of California, Boalt Hall School of Law
Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF)

Rebecca Walters
American University Washington College of Law
Ayuda

Aaron Wenzloff
University of Michigan Law School
Connecticut Legal Services

List of Fellows – 2010 [Skadden Fellowship Foundation]