UCLA Law Partners with Alumna to Establish Postgraduate Immigration Law Fellowship Stacy Tolchin ’01, a graduate of
the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy and the founder of a private law practice focusing exclusively on complex immigration cases, has partnered with UCLA Law to establish a two-year immigration law postgraduate fellowship at her firm. The fellowship STACY TOLCHIN will be open to a UCLA School of Law graduate every two years, beginning with the class of 2015. The firm will pay the fellow’s salary and benefits, and the fellow will be eligible for the law school’s Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP). “I have been so proud of UCLA Law’s commitment to immigrant rights work in the last few years, yet I know it is difficult to find employment in this field after law school. Many new lawyers have passion and drive, but are unable to secure the requisite training and mentorship to become truly effective advocates in this very complex area of law,” Tolchin said. “I benefitted greatly from UCLA Law’s Epstein Program
in Public Interest Law and Policy, and I have established this postgraduate fellowship to afford UCLA Law graduates committed to immigrant rights work the opportunity to receive consistent mentorship and training as young lawyers, enabling them to pursue their commitment to protecting and advancing the rights of immigrants.” Tolchin, who founded the Law Offices of Stacy Tolchin in 2010, has practiced exclusively in immigration law since 2001. Prior to establishing her own firm, Tolchin was a staff attorney with Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale, LLP, a San Francisco-based immigration law firm. She specializes in complex deportation cases and primarily litigates before the courts of appeals and United States district courts, as well as the Executive Office for Immigration Review. “I have known Stacy for many years, and not only is she a top-notch immigration attorney who is widely respected and highly influential in local and national immigration law circles, but she is also a dedicated alumna who has remained engaged with the law school,” Hiroshi Motomura, Susan Westerberg Prager professor of law, said. “Through her generosity, our students will be able to gain valuable, real-world immigration law experience working alongside Stacy and learning from her.”
Recent UCLA Law Graduate Selected for Immigrant Justice Corps Fellowship Nhu–Y Ngo ’14 , a graduate of the
David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy and Critical Race Studies Specialization, was selected to receive an Immigrant Justice Corps (IJC) Fellowship. She was one of only 25 students chosen for the selective two-year program—the country’s first NHU-Y NGO fellowship program dedicated solely to providing quality legal assistance to immigrants. As an IJC fellow, Ngo will represent immigrants with the most complex cases, such as deportation defense and affirmative
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petitions for victims of crime, domestic violence and human trafficking, among others. Ngo’s desire to be an immigration attorney and advocate is informed by a mix of personal and professional experiences. An immigrant herself, she is the daughter of limited-English-proficient, working-class parents. While at UCLA Law, she was an advocate on behalf of asylum seekers and low-income tenants at Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, respectively, and she served as a law clerk with the Federal Coordination and Compliance Section of the Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice. Before enrolling at UCLA Law, Ngo worked as a policy associate at one of the nation’s leading think tanks for social justice, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.