THREE STUDENTS RECEIVE SKADDEN FELLOWSHIPS Three third-year students in UCLA School of Law’s David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy received Ariana Cernius ’17 prestigious Skadden Fellowships for 2017. This marks the second time that three UCLA School of Law students received Skadden Fellowships in Veryl Pow ’17 one year, making UCLA Law students among the most honored by the program. Ariana Cernius ’17, Veryl Pow ’17, and Vivian Wong ’17 Vivian Wong ’17 are working in public interest law positions in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., as part of the Skadden Fellowship Program, which supports graduating law students who provide legal services to poor, elderly, disabled or otherwise disadvantaged people. Fellows receive a full salary and benefits for two years. Cernius is at Bet Tzedek Legal Services in Los Angeles. She is working with clients who have developmental disabilities. At UCLA Law, she served as co-chair of the Disability Law Society and chief organizer of the 2016 Disability Law Symposium. Pow works at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in Washington, D.C. He is helping to represent indigent individuals who are being sued by bail bond companies, and is collaborating with advocates to end the use of money bail in the criminal justice system in Maryland. At UCLA Law, he served as a co-chair of the Reentry Legal Clinic, Criminal Justice Society, and student chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, and he volunteered at the Venice Beach Homeless Clinic. Wong is at the Learning Rights Law Center in Los Angeles, providing
YOUNG LIONS: Students from the UCLA Lab School participated in a moot court trial, Hammurabi v. Nebuchadnezzar II, in UCLA Law’s A. Barry Cappello Courtroom. special education legal services to youth who face school discipline due to unaddressed mental health needs. At UCLA Law she worked with the El Centro Public Counsel CARES and Education Rights clinics, the National Lawyers Guild’s Homeless Clinic, and the Youth & Justice Clinic.
TWO EPSTEIN STUDENTS NAMED BROWNING FELLOWS Two students in the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy have been awarded Peggy Browning Daysi Alonzo ’18 Fellowships in labor law. About 400 applicants seek 80 Peggy Browning Fellowships each year. Named in honor of leading union-side attorney Ysabel Jurado ’18 Margaret Browning, the fellowships provide stipends and summer job placements for students pursuing careers in labor law and the public interest. Daysi Alonzo ’18 is working at the union-side law firm Murphy Anderson in Washington, D.C. A daughter of Mexican immigrants, she plans to practice law as an advocate for lowwage workers. Ysabel Jurado ‘19 is working at the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy in Los Angeles. A daughter of undocumented immigrants, she has been a community organizer and policy aide to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.
GIDEON FELLOW HEADED TO ALABAMA Travis Bell ’17 was selected as the UCLA Gideon Fellow for 2017 and will work at a public defender office in Alabama as part of the Gideon’s Travis Bell ’17 Promise Law School Partnership Program. Gideon’s Promise, named for the Supreme Court case Gideon v. Wainwright, is a non-profit organization that seeks to strengthen representation of indigent defendants across the country. The Law School Partnership Program provides employment and training to recent law school graduates committed to public defense. Bell will work in the Office of the Public Defender in Montgomery, Alabama. He previously held internships at the Baltimore County Office of the Public Defender in Maryland; the Colorado Public Defender in Colorado Springs, Colorado; the Bronx Defenders in New York; and the Mecklenburg County Public Defender in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was a Gideon’s Promise Summer Fellow. At UCLA Law, Bell co-founded the Criminal Justice Law Review. The Law School Partnership Program is a joint effort of Gideon’s Promise, the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, participating law schools and public defender offices across the nation. It is a three-year program that supports recent graduates who are committed to public defense with training and permanent employment in a public defender office in the deep South.
FALL 2017 | UCLA LAW MAGAZINE 59