Public Interest Fellowships

Each year, Kirkland funds multiple postgraduate fellowships as part of the Firm's commitment to the Public Interest Law Initiative® (PILI), an organization with a mission to cultivate a lifelong commitment to public interest law and pro bono service within the Illinois legal community. The fellowships allow incoming Kirkland lawyers to work at public interest legal aid organizations across Chicago while studying for the bar exam. The legal aid organizations help clients become citizens, buy homes, adopt children, secure disability benefits and gain asylum, among many other achievements. Kirkland sponsors approximately 30 PILI Fellows every year, the most of any law firm in Chicago.

Kirkland’s New York office annually awards Public Service Fellowships to outstanding law school graduates from Columbia Law School and the New York University School of Law for a year of public service work aimed at addressing unmet legal needs in New York City.

Amelia Goldberg, from New York University School of Law, and Sophia Berg, from Columbia Law School, were selected as Kirkland’s 2024–25 New York Public Service Fellows. Amelia is working with the Family Justice Law Center, assisting survivors of intimate partner violence who are subjected to heightened surveillance by the Administration for Children’s Services and New York family courts. Sophia is working with Sanctuary for Families to create legal options for victims of gender-based violence, including access to healthcare.