Student Advice

Why I Chose a Fellowship as My Path to the Profession

This March, I was honored to be selected as a Federal Fellow as part of the Reproductive Justice Fellowship Program sponsored by If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice. I will complete a one-year policy fellowship at Unite for Reproductive Justice and Gender Equity (URGE) in Washington, D.C. I am currently on the Board of Temple’s chapter of If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, where we advocate to ensure that people can decide, if, when, and how to create and sustain families. URGE is a youth-based reproductive justice organization that advocates parenting with dignity, abortion access, health and wellness, sex positivity, and civic engagement.

In this Voices post, I’ll discuss why I decided to pursue policy work instead of direct service work, why I pursued a fellowship, and the pros and cons of fellowships as the next step after graduating from law school.

Fellowships are well worth the effort because they are an excellent way to start a legal career, and place you within a network of other fellows with whom you can build relationships.

Direct service or policy work?

I went to law school knowing that I wanted to do reproductive justice advocacy work, but I had no idea what kind of advocacy I wanted to pursue. My first experience with policy work was through the Law and Public Policy Program the first summer of law school, where students intern full-time at an organization in Washington, D.C., and take classes on current policy topics. I credit the Program with solidifying my desire to pursue policy work, and for giving me my first taste of how fulfilling legal work can be. I interned at the National Abortion Federation and felt, for the first time, that I was doing exactly the sort of work I was meant to do. I really enjoyed the focus on systemic issues in reproductive justice, and thinking critically about my role in the movement.

Even though I felt called to do policy work after my first year of law school, I am a very cautious person and wanted to try direct service work as well to see how I liked it in comparison. In the years that followed the Law and Publicly Program I worked in a wide variety of direct service and policy settings, all related to reproductive justice. Examples include working on Protection from Abuse orders for victims of domestic violence at Women Against Abuse, advocating for comprehensive sexual education at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, and helping low-income clients gain Social Security benefits at Community Legal Services. Having such a wide variety of experiences made me more confident that policy work was the right choice for me. It also was very helpful when it came time to apply to fellowships because I had experience in so many different areas of reproductive justice advocacy.

Why did I pursue a fellowship?

When I went to law school I had no idea what a fellowship was. I knew it was something that people did in the public interest world, and I also knew that the process was extremely competitive. Reproductive justice advocacy is a difficult field to break into because there are so few jobs, and even fewer fellowships available for policy work. I remember reading through the profiles of the current If/When/How Federal Fellows and thinking that they were all so impressive, and that I wouldn’t possibly get chosen. It’s not that I’m not qualified for a reproductive justice fellowship – I am, but in my mind I kept thinking about the hundreds of other, equally qualified, candidates.

I brought my questions and concerns to a handful of the law school faculty, and they couldn’t have been more supportive. I looked for fellowships that had opportunities for mentorship and collaboration with other fellows – these are the aspects I enjoyed the most about the Law and Public Policy Program. I was told to apply to every fellowship I was remotely interested in, and to not let it get me down if I didn’t get selected. So, I applied and waited, and waited, and waited. Fellowships are a waiting game. It took me five months and multiple rounds of interviews between when fellowship applications were due and when I was selected, which is typical of the process.

The end result is that I got a fellowship, but I got turned down from fellowships too. Because I had such a good network of faculty members and friends in law school, I was able to separate my sense of self worth and confidence in my abilities as an advocate from getting a particular fellowship. The If/When/How Fellowship is a perfect fit for me because I can continue to learn from other advocates in the field and members of my fellowship cohort. I also am excited to be able to spend more time in Washington, D.C., and work with other organizations doing innovative reproductive justice advocacy.

Parting words:

If you think you might like to do public interest work after you graduate law school, apply to fellowships. More specifically, apply to as many fellowships as possible with the understanding that the process is long, and competitive. Fellowships are well worth the effort because they are an excellent way to start a legal career, and place you within a network of other fellows with whom you can build relationships. It was definitely the right choice for me, and one that I couldn’t have made without the support of the law school faculty and my friends who went through the same process.

Questions about this post? Drop us a line at lawcomm@temple.edu.