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Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham Fellowship Benefits Law Students and Nonprofits Alike
[by Erica Winter] On its 50th anniversary in 1996, the law rm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham pledged $250,000 to the Pittsburgh Foundation, creating a fund for a new fellowship allowing law students to work at one of four area nonprots. With gifts of $50,000 a year for ve years, the U.S. K&LNG Public Interest Fellowship became active in the summer of 2000.

Since then, two or three law students have each received the $1,000 per week stipend to do a four-week public interest summer internship. Two law students received the fellowship this year, says Roslyn Pitts, Firmwide Director of Recruitment and Legal Personnel for K&LNG. The large corporate rm started in Pittsburgh, and the fellowship is based there. K&LNG does not require that law students most of whom are rising third-yearswork as summer associates at the rm for the reminder of the summer, says Pitts. Some do apply and get both a summer-associate position and the fellowship, and some only apply for the fellowship, preferring to split their summers between doing public interest work and working at other law rms. Another opportunity opened up by the fellowship is that it allows some law students to stretch out the stipend and devote their whole summers to doing public interest work, says Scott Hollander, Executive Director of KidsVoice, one of the four groups designated by K&LNG for the fellowship. The other designated organizations are Neighborhood Legal Services Association, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, and the Education Law Center.

60. The group has had a K&LNG fellow ever since the start of the program, says Hollander. Hollander, who was on the Advisory Committee this year, helping to select the K&LNG fellows, says he is pleased to see an increase in the number of highly qualied applicants, as well as an increasing interest overall in public service legal work. As for the other groups included in the fellowship, the Neighborhood Legal Services Association provides pro bono legal services to low-income people involved in nancial, housing, or family legal issues. The Allegheny Conference on Community Development seeks to improve the economy and quality of life in the region through research, planning, and policy proposals. The Education Law Center provides legal assistance and information on issues in public education. There are thousands of organizations out there, says Pitts. The rm chose these four on the recommendation of a committee of K&LNG partners set up to select public interest groups to include in the fellowship; the groups were also approved by the Pittsburgh Foundation. When granted a fellowship, each law student

If law students apply for both the fellowship and a summer-associate position with K&LNG, they are not assessed by the same people. The K&LNG hiring committee chooses summer associates. There is a separate Advisory Committee that chooses the K&LNG fellows. The Advisory Committee is comprised of one K&LNG partner, a director from one of the beneting nonprots, and an in-house attorney from a business in Pittsburgh. Each of the committee positions rotates, so the committee is not the same group from year to year. The fellowship is a completely separate program from the rms summer-associate program, says Pitts; the fellowship is meant to benet the community and not the rm. And it is not just the nonprots that benet from law students doing public interest legal work, says Hollander. Interns at KidsVoice, including K&LNG fellows, get the chance to stand in front of a judge and make an argument, which is not something many summer associates have the opportunity to do. Above and beyond the practical experience, law students get an understanding of how difcult this work can be emotionally, says Hollander. They learn to respect the power and impact that one simple recommendation may have in the life of a child, and they also see that these cases are not necessarily cut and dried. Another important thing that KidsVoice interns learn is that this work is not for everybody, he says. Doing pubic interest law for abused kids, says Hollander, takes passion, dedication, and humility.

KidsVoice, formerly Legal Aid for Children, provides representation for children who are caught up in abuse and neglect cases in Allegheny County, which includes the city of Pittsburgh. The group represents all ages of kids, aiding 5,000 individual children in the last year. KidsVoice has grown over the past ve years, going from a staff of 10 to a staff of

may choose a group from among the four. The law student works out with the group when to spend his/her four weeks there; if the student fellow is also a K&LNG summer associate, the students may also choose when to work with the organization and when to work with the rm, says Pitts.

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