Five Columbia Law School Graduates Awarded Prestigious Fellowships to Pursue Public Interest Careers
New York, August 4, 2015—Carrying on a longstanding tradition of public service at Columbia Law School, five new graduates who combined academic excellence with a passion for serving others have been awarded prestigious Lowenstein and Bernstein fellowships.
Four members of the Class of 2015 received Lowenstein Fellowships, which recognize students who have demonstrated exceptional dedication and potential for making a substantial contribution to public interest law. They are:
- Paul Chander ’15, who will soon start work on economic justice issues at the Center for Community Based Enterprise in Detroit;
- Mayra B. Joachin ’15, who will join the National Immigration Law Center focusing on the expansion of health care access to immigrant communities;
- Bassam M. Khawaja ’15, who has been named a Sandler Fellow at Human Rights Watch and will work in the Children’s Rights division there documenting the denial of education to children seeking refuge from the civil war in Syria; and
- Holly D. Stubbs ’15, who will work at the Center for Economic and Social Rights evaluating evidence that has been effective in human rights cases.
Their classmate, Whitney A. Hayes ’15, has been awarded the Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann Fellowship. Hayes will start work in the fall at The Bronx Defenders, a holistic, client-centered legal services provider in the Bronx that handles criminal, family, and civil cases in addition to providing social work support to indigent clients.
The Lowenstein Fellowships were established in 1998 by the late Professor Louis Lowenstein ’53 LL.B. and his wife Helen. Fellows are selected by a committee of faculty, administrators, and graduates who are committed to helping students build careers in public interest law. The Bernstein Fellowship is awarded to a Columbia Law School graduate whose career will be substantially devoted to using the law to fight racial, gender, or other discrimination.
By supplementing Columbia Law School’s already substantial Loan Repayment Assistance Program benefits, which are guaranteed to qualifying graduates, these fellowships allow recipients to develop their careers on a firm financial footing.