Celebrating the Skadden Fellowship Program’s 35th Anniversary!

For 35 years, we’ve provided two-year fellowships to recent law graduates pursuing a career in public interest law. To celebrate this milestone anniversary, we are delighted to share profiles of one Skadden Fellow from each year, who together illustrate the Foundation's extraordinary impact.

2004 Senior Adviser on Gender and Equality, U.S. Department of Justice Professor of Law; Director, Human Rights Clinic; Faculty Chair, Human Rights Program, University of Miami School of Law

Caroline Bettinger-Lopez

Caroline is a leader in envisioning and implementing global, national and community responses to gender-based violence, having served as the White House adviser on violence against women to President Obama and Vice President Biden as well as a senior adviser to the White House Gender Policy Council under President Biden and a senior adviser on gender and equality at the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Foundation gave me the opportunity to pursue my dream Fellowship focusing on the civil and human rights of domestic violence survivors. Learning from my incredible clients allowed me to witness the realities they face and to think creatively and collaboratively alongside them about the law’s potential to provide a robust remedy or, sadly in some instances, revictimize highly vulnerable members of our society. Ultimately, my Fellowship forged my career path to clinical law teaching and serving two administrations in the White House and at the U.S. Department of Justice.

2010 Co-founder and Executive Director at International Refugee Assistance Project

Becca Heller

Becca is the co-founder and executive director of the International Refugee Assistance Project as well as the recipient of numerous recognitions, including a MacArthur "genius” award.

During law school, I had the good fortune to co-found what would later become the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), to fill the acute need for legal aid for displaced people seeking safety. If the Skadden Foundation had not been willing to take a bet on me to turn our student organization into a real NGO, I would not be able to say that, 13 years later, we have provided direct legal aid to more than 40,000 people on the move and achieved systemic impact victories for hundreds of thousands more.

2016 Supervising Attorney, Community Services & Outreach, Cabrini Green Legal Aid

Sue Pak

Sue spearheads community services and outreach efforts at the organization that hosted her Skadden Fellowship, Cabrini Green Legal Aid, where she assists and represents individuals impacted by the collateral consequences of having a juvenile or criminal record.

My Fellowship highlighted the growing need for records relief services for youth and emerging adults in Chicago and, following my Fellowship, the experiences and legal expertise I gained in this work equipped me to lead and supervise a newly formed department focused on serving this unique population. Now, my work has expanded to overseeing both juvenile and criminal records relief services to thousands of self-represented litigants in Cook County, Illinois, through Cabrini Green Legal Aid’s Expungement Help Desks.

1991 Executive Director at Disability Rights California

Andrew Imparato

Andrew leads the nation's largest disability rights group, Disability Rights California, and is one of the country's most prominent disability leaders.

My Fellowship is when I learned how to be out and proud as a lawyer with a nonvisible disability (bipolar disorder), I learned my love of policy and coalition work, and I learned how to be entrepreneurial in my approach to my career. Thirty-two years later, I am still applying those lessons and still doing the work I began as a Fellow.

1992 Director of the Law Project at Chicago Coalition for the Homeless

Patricia Nix-Hodes

Beginning with her Fellowship and culminating in her current role as director of the Law Project at Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Patricia has dedicated almost the entirety of her three-decade legal career to addressing the needs of homeless Chicagoans.

As a Skadden Fellow, I worked with students and families experiencing homelessness to remove barriers to education. This provided the foundation for my career — I still advocate with students and families to access the education they deserve as well as collaborate with people experiencing homelessness to address a wide range of legal needs.