In December, the Skadden Foundation announced the 28 recipients of Skadden Fellowships for 2014. Among them is Sarah Hess, who had served as a PILI Intern in the summer of 2013. Sarah, who graduates from the John Marshall Law School this spring, will be working at the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to promote child and community wellness by implementing a medical-legal partnership for Erie Family Health Center’s Spanish-speaking population. Erie Health Center is a network of 13 health care sites that serve largely low-income clients.
Sarah is the first Skadden Fellow in recent years to come from an unranked law school. Speaking with the National Law Journal, Sarah said that hard work is what makes the difference:
“If I chose to, I could have been discouraged,” Hess said. “But what it did was made me really refine my project and made me go as far down every path of research I was pursuing. I used it as a motivator. I think the moral is a simple one: You should never let people tell you something is impossible. You should use the warning as motivation to do a better job.”
Congratulations to Sarah and all of the 2014 Skadden Fellows! We look forward to hearing about the great work you will accomplish, and we thank you for your service to low-income and underrepresented communities in need.
About the Skadden Fellowship Program: The Skadden Fellowship Program, described as “a legal Peace Corps,” was established in 1988 in recognition of the dire need for greater funding for graduating law students who wish to devote their professional lives to providing legal services to the poor (including the working poor), the elderly, the homeless and the disabled, as well as those deprived of their civil or human rights. Fellowships are awarded for two years, with Skadden providing each Fellow a salary and paying all fringe benefits to which an employee of the sponsoring organization would be entitled. The 2014 class of Fellows brings to 705 the number of academically outstanding law school graduates and judicial clerks the firm has funded to work full-time for legal and advocacy organizations. Learn more at www.skaddenfellowships.org.