Pro Bono 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.

Selene Nafisi and Grace Yi, from New York University School of Law, and Caroline Lowry, from Columbia Law School, have been selected as Kirkland’s 2019-20 New York Public Interest Fellows. Grace will be working with The New York Civil Liberties Union to challenge the parole revocation hearing practices in the state of New York. Selene will be assisting undocumented youth in seeking immigration relief and developing new ways to challenge recent policy changes in conjunction with The Door: A Center of Alternatives, Legal Services Center. Caroline will be combating employment discrimination for survivors of sex trafficking and individuals who have limited convictions records at The Legal Aid Society’s Exploitation Intervention Project and Case Closed Project.

For more information about the 2020–2021 New York City Public Service Fellowships, view our webpage and application.