Photo: UC Irvine School of Law. Left to right: Ava Ahlstrand, Hatchly Galindo Moreno, Samir Hafez, Olivia Mazzucato, and Ahmad Shanaa.
Five 2026 graduates of UC Irvine School of Law have secured competitive post-graduate public-interest fellowships, work spanning housing, immigration, civil rights, and impact litigation across California, Nevada, and Michigan. The school announced them on 4 June 2026. Our congratulations to all five.
"We are incredibly proud of these graduates and our continuing students," said Austen Parrish, Dean and Chancellor's Professor of Law. "They have worked hard to get here, and the organizations that selected them are fortunate to have them. This is exactly what UC Irvine Law is about, training skilled, committed lawyers who go on to do meaningful and impactful work."
The five fellows
- Ava Ahlstrand, a Housing Justice Fellow at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, will work in its Eviction Defense Center on the Stay Housed Los Angeles renters' right-to-counsel initiative.
- Hatchly Galindo Moreno won an Immigrant Justice Corps Justice Fellowship, a two-year placement with the UNLV Immigration Clinic.
- Samir Hafez, a West Michigan Legal Fellow, will work at the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.
- Olivia Mazzucato holds a UC Irvine Public Service Fellowship, placed at Public Counsel in Los Angeles on its impact-litigation and education-equity work.
- Ahmad Shanaa won a litigation fellowship at King & Siegel LLP, a plaintiff-side employment and civil-rights firm.
The Immigrant Justice Corps, and the others
The most distinctive of the five is the Immigrant Justice Corps fellowship. Founded in 2014 by the late Judge Robert Katzmann, it is the country's first and only fellowship program dedicated to immigration legal services, and says it has helped more than 135,000 immigrants since it began. Its Justice Fellowship trains recent law graduates to represent immigrants in removal defense, asylum, and other matters. The remaining fellowships, from the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles's eviction-defense program to a plaintiff-side litigation fellowship, share a common feature: each puts a new lawyer directly in front of clients from day one.
Why it matters
UC Irvine School of Law is the newest of the University of California's law schools, opening in 2009 with Erwin Chemerinsky as its founding dean. Public service has been part of its identity from the start: it says students have contributed more than 180,000 pro bono hours since 2009, and it reports ranking among the top schools nationally for graduates entering public-interest law. Five competitive public-interest fellowships in a single graduating class is a strong showing for that mission. "The lawyers who do the most for their communities often start exactly where these students and graduates are," Dean Parrish said. "What excites me most is that this is just the beginning for them."
For UC Irvine law students
UC Irvine students and alumni have complimentary access to LegalAlphabet, where they can search legal jobs and internships worldwide, including the public-interest and civil-rights roles these fellows are entering. Visit the UC Irvine 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 UC Irvine School of Law, with additional background from the Immigrant Justice Corps. Quotations are drawn from the UC Irvine announcement.
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