Two Class of 2020 grads have been awarded the prestigious public interest fellowship.
In May of 2020, Equal Justice Works, the nation’s largest facilitator of opportunities in public interest law, announced its 2020 class of Equal Justice Works Fellows.
Each year, Equal Justice Works selects a class of public interest lawyers who have designed innovative projects in partnership with legal services organizations to address unmet legal needs and oppressed or marginalized communities. Of the seventy-eight law school graduates selected from 432 applicants, two are from CUNY Law’s Class of 2020.
Hosted by Legal Aid Society of New York
Service location New York, New York
Anna Moss, CUNY Law student
Anna will provide client-centered legal representation and systemic advocacy to ensure that adolescent youth in congregate care have significant connections to adults when they age out of foster care.In her five years as a foster parent, Anna has witnessed the child welfare system habitually devalue the lives of older foster youth, and knows youth will attain justice only through a specialized legal strategy that honors their lived experience.Her fellowship will focus on a comprehensive litigation and advocacy strategy to ensure that the Administration for Children’s Services will help youth strengthen their relationships with chosen adults in their lives.She also plans to create a city-wide practice model for staff attorneys across all five boroughs. Finally, she will support The Legal Aid Society’s Juvenile Rights Practice’s Special Litigation and Law Reform Unit in their informal systemic advocacy and affirmative litigation.
Shaina Weisbrot ’20
Hosted by Day One
Service location New York, New York
Shaina Weisbrot, CUNY Law
Through her previous professional experience, Shaina witnessed that the overlapping challenges of foster care and dating violence largely remain in the dark. Consequently, Shaina developed an Equal Justice Works project where she will represent and advocate for foster care youth in abusive relationships and empower them to end oft-repeated cycles of violence.
Shaina’s goal is to unite service providers in the intimate partner violence and child welfare fields to provide a unified front for youth susceptible to violence and to equip staff with another tool to support these youth. She looks forward to applying all she has learned from CUNY Law to represent and support this population so that they have every opportunity for healthy and fulfilling dating relationships.
