Foundation Welcomes
37th Class
We're thrilled to introduce our 2025 Skadden Fellows. Hailing from 18 law schools across the country, these 28 individuals will begin their public interest careers by addressing a broad range of civil legal issues affecting people living in poverty throughout the United States.
2025
ACLU Ruth Bader Ginsburg Center for Liberty, Washington, DC
Gabby Grossman
Prevent the lasting trauma of family separation through direct representation, strategic litigation, and community education strategies to secure accommodations in child welfare proceedings, as required by federal disability laws, state laws, and federal regulations protecting parents with disabilities.
During my clinical experiences and internships working with families involved in the foster care system, nearly every neglect case I saw — defined by markers of poverty, such as inadequate food or shelter — involved a parent with a disability. This is largely because parents with disabilities are rarely provided the services and accommodations they are entitled to under the ADA. However, when supports are properly provided, child removals decreased by 91% for parents with disabilities. I worked with the ACLU, disability rights groups, and family defense advocates to design a project aimed at getting families the services they are entitled to, so that families can thrive and children can stay at home with their parents.
2025
American Friends Service Committee, Newark, NJ
Parima Kadikar
Integrate disability advocacy into deportation defense work for disabled clients by filing disability-based civil rights complaints, submitting habeas corpus petitions, developing training materials and tracking outcomes.
Living through the COVID-19 pandemic has shown me how disability justice can help build a safer world for everyone. Applying disability justice principles to immigration law, especially in a detention setting, can improve outcomes for disabled immigrants, open pathways for creative legal arguments, and increase visibility about an often-overlooked population.
2025
Worker Justice Center of New York, Hawthorne, NY
Marí Perales Sánchez
Cultivate resilient and holistic legal empowerment alongside migrant farmworker women facing precarious health and security labor conditions in rural New York.
Since 2018, I have been privileged to rally alongside the innovative, community-rooted farmworker women’s movement, learning from and contributing to its fight for justice as a systems-impacted immigrant woman. Through this Fellowship, I am honored to deepen my ongoing commitment to this struggle by contributing a legal tool to advance health and security justice alongside farmworker women in rural New York.
2025
Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services, Pittsburgh, PA
Nathan Porceng
Advise on civil legal matters and build clear legal pathways to proliferate community-controlled solar energy projects in historically marginalized Appalachian localities in an effort to democratize the region’s energy infrastructure and promote a just transition to renewable power.
I developed this project to help bring clean and affordable energy to the Appalachian communities most harmed by the fossil fuel industry. These communities want renewable power and there are billions of dollars in funding available to help them, but systemic legal barriers have gotten in their way.