Photo: Harvard Law School. Langdell Hall.
Fourteen graduates of Harvard Law School have won two of the most prestigious public-interest fellowships in American law: six Skadden Fellowships and eight Equal Justice Works Fellowships. Harvard announced the cohort on 16 June 2026. Between them, the fourteen will spend the next two years on criminal-justice reform, immigrant and voting rights, reproductive freedom, disability and education law, housing, and more, at legal-aid offices and advocacy organizations across the country. Our congratulations to all fourteen.
The Skadden Fellows
- Wesley Streicher - ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project
- Jessenia Class - Rights Behind Bars
- Elliott DeRiso - ACLU of Southern California
- Siddharth Jejurikar - ACLU Immigrant Rights Project
- Lucas Rodriguez - ACLU Voting Rights Project
- Jett Watson - Legal Aid Chicago
The Equal Justice Works Fellows
- Sarah Berton - Education Law Center in Pennsylvania
- Katherine Fleming - ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project
- Caroline Arnold - Neighborhood Legal Services in Los Angeles
- Mirella Baker - MacArthur Justice Center
- Will Cassou - Inner City Law Center
- Ben Guzman - Make the Road New Jersey
- Patrick Healy - Legal Aid North Carolina
- Jenny Pigge - Greater Boston Legal Services
Two of the projects
Jett Watson, a former U.S. Navy officer who worked with Harvard's Veterans Law and Disability Benefits Clinic, will use his Skadden Fellowship at Legal Aid Chicago to expand legal services and benefits for Illinois veterans, particularly in underserved suburban and rural parts of the state. "I really fell in love with the work I was doing," he said of the clinical work that led him here. "It changed my trajectory."
Mirella Baker, an Equal Justice Works Fellow, will work with the MacArthur Justice Center and the Chicago Public Defender's office on a project centered on data privacy, particularly police surveillance. She was blunt about what made it possible: "If you want to do a fellowship, you're able to do a fellowship. The money is not going to stop you. That's a truly unique thing about Harvard."
"We are incredibly proud of Jett, Mirella, and all of our Skadden and Equal Justice Works fellows," said Catherine Pattanayak, assistant dean for public service. "They are using these opportunities to tackle important issues in communities across the country, and we feel privileged to help them take these initial steps in their public interest careers."
What these fellowships are
The Skadden Fellowship, run by the Skadden Foundation since 1988 and often called "the legal Peace Corps," gives recent law graduates two years of funding to practice public-interest law full time at a host organization. It is widely regarded as the most competitive postgraduate public-interest fellowship in the country; the 2026 national class numbered just 34 fellows from 20 law schools, which means Harvard's six represent roughly a sixth of the entire class. Equal Justice Works, founded in 1986, runs the other flagship program: an applicant and a host organization jointly design a two-year project, and a sponsor funds it.
Harvard supports its fellowship applicants through the Bernard Koteen Office of Public Interest Advising, and its Public Service Venture Fund awards more than a million dollars a year to help students pursue public-interest careers, part of why, as Baker put it, the money does not stop students who want to do this work.
For Harvard law students
Harvard Law students and alumni have complimentary access to LegalAlphabet, where they can search legal jobs and internships worldwide. Visit the Harvard Law campus page, browse current openings on the United States legal jobs board, or read more from our Law School News desk.
Sources
This report is based on the announcement published by Harvard Law School, with additional background from the Skadden Foundation and Equal Justice Works. Quotations are drawn from the Harvard announcement.
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