Bridge to
employment
CAREER BUILDER
W
hen Angela Inzano (BA ’09, JD ’12)
graduated from the School of Law,
she knew she wanted to do public
interest work. She also knew the job
market was tough and opportunities for new public
interest lawyers were limited.
With no job offer in hand, determined to stay
in Chicago while she looked, the Cleveland native
applied to Loyola’s Public Interest Law Fellowship
program—and turned an uncertain time into a
turning point.
The program, begun in 2012, provides
recent graduates interested in working in the
public interest with stipends that allow them to
work at public interest organizations that would
otherwise not be able to pay them. In exchange
for 25 hours per week, fellows receive $1,000 per
month for three to six months. The first two groups
of fellows have worked at organizations including
the Domestic Violence Legal Clinic, Legal Aid Society,
Office of the Wisconsin District Attorney, Cabrini
Green Legal Aid Clinic, Equip for Equality, Center
for Disability and Elder Law, Chicago Coalition for
the Homeless, Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil
Rights Under Law, and Detroit Center for Family
Advocacy, among others.
Benefiting both fellows and the organizations
at which they work, the program is unquestionably
a win-win proposition, says Mary Bird, director of
public service programs. “It gives our graduates
valuable work experience in legal settings, allows
them to apply for jobs from a position of strength,
makes them competitive with students from other
law schools offering similar programs, and provides
an extended networking opportunity,” she says.
As nonprofit organizations struggle harder
than ever for funding, the fellowship “is a way for
these agencies to help address their high caseloads,”
Bird continues. “Our fellows are really strong
students, with demonstrated interest and experience
in public interest law. Employers see them as assets
to the organization.”
Maureen Kieffer, associate director of career
services, has seen the fellowship “enable more of
our graduates to launch their public interest careers
and secure coveted positions. It is gratifying to
see our graduates continue the relationships they
built during law school with the public interest
community in Chicago and beyond,” she says.
“Through the support of their supervisors, our
graduates are able to acquire additional skills
and contacts while also meeting the legal needs
of our community.”
Experience that paid off
Inzano, a longtime volunteer for LGBT issues,
used her fellowship to secure a place at Lambda
Legal. “I knew that Lambda doesn’t generally
hire new law graduates, and I thought a fellowship
would be a great way to get experience there,”
she relates. “I got to work on some really interesting
appellate cases, doing research and taking the
first shot at drafting sections of briefs. Eventually,
I felt like I became a real part of the legal team,
participating in conference calls and strategy, and
making connections with Lambda attorneys I still
maintain today.”
Shortly before her fellowship at Lambda was
up, Inzano landed a job with the Family Defense
Center (FDC), where she’s one of two staff attorneys.
“I handle my own caseload, supervise cases in our
pro bono network, and coordinate policy projects,”
she says. Her previous work with Loyola’s Life After
Innocence program, which helps wrongly convicted
persons reenter society after release from prison,
intersects with the FDC’s focus on cases in which
parents and other caregivers are innocent of abuse
or neglect accusations.
“This job is a great fit for my interests because
it includes both legal services and policy work,” says
Inzano, who hopes for an eventual career in policy
advocacy. Meanwhile, she says, she wouldn’t have
her current position without the fellowship program.
“They tell me here that my fellowship experience
was a huge piece of why they hired me,” she says. “It
really did impact my getting this job.”
A foot in the door
Allison Creekmur (JD ’12) gives similar
credit to the program for her ongoing work at
the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago. “Were
it not for the fellowship, I never would have gotten
in the door here,” she says. Unlike Inzano, whose
fellowship served as a springboard to permanent
employment at a different organization, Creekmur
parlayed her fellowship into longer employment
at the LAF: a one-year position funded through the
AmeriCorps VISTA program.
Creekmur’s interest in work related to
human trafficking led her to the LAF, which was
interested in this issue but hadn’t yet begun
efforts to address it. She spent her fellowship
period working on T visas for people who were
trafficked to the United States against their will
and, often, forced to commit crimes.
“The legal problems in these cases can
be very complex, including custody and other
family law, public benefits, bankruptcy, and
criminal law, for example,” Creekmur says. “An
organization like the LAF is ideal, because we
have practice groups devoted to a wide variety
of civil matters.”
After her fellowship ended, she continued
volunteering with the LAF, developing what would
become her yearlong job with the foundation’s
Illinois Migrant Legal Assistance Project. Creekmur
is cochairing the Labor Trafficking Committee
for the Cook County Human Trafficking Task
Force, and conducting outreach and raising
awareness about labor trafficking among
agricultural workers. “I hadn’t done public
speaking and teaching before, and I realized
that I love it,” she says, adding that she envisions
a career combining outreach and direct client
representation on immigration issues.
“Because of the fellowship, I’ve learned
so much about what I’m interested in doing—
and, with my work on trafficking, helped start
something important here that’s going to last,”
she says.
■
F O R M O R E I N F O R M A T I O N O N T H E P R O G R A M , C O N T A C T M A R Y B I R D A T
M B I R D 1 @ L U C . E D U
.
21
PUBLIC INTEREST LAW FELLOWSHIPS
HAVE BEEN
AWARDED SINCE 2012.
20
FELLOWS ARE EMPLOYED;
ONE
IS PARTICIPATING IN AN INTERNATIONAL
POST-GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP.
Fellowship program offers new grads vital public
interest experience during their job hunts
“They tell me here
that my fellowship
experience was a
huge piece of why
they hired me.”
—Angela Inzano (BA ’09, JD ’12)
SPRING 2014
13
12
LOYOLA LAW
