About the Foundation

Fellowships are awarded for two years. Skadden provides each host organization funding to support the Fellow’s salary and benefits, as well as approved professional development. Additionally, the Foundation has supports available for Fellows, including law school loan repayment assistance, and reimbursement for expenses related to the bar and moving. Complete information about our supports is available on the Host and Applicant tabs of our website.

The caliber and dedication of Skadden Fellows has been highlighted by numerous publications, including the Financial Times, which wrote that the Fellowship Program ensures some of the brightest legal talent goes into public life. Legal commentator David Lat called the Skadden Fellowships "the public-interest world’s version of Supreme Court clerkships or Rhodes Scholarships." The Los Angeles Times described the Foundation as "a legal Peace Corps."

Skadden Fellows are Fellows for life, and the Foundation empowers their public interest work throughout the course of their careers. We are continually growing our innovative supports for the Fellows’ community; an up-to-date outline of these initiatives is included in the Applicant tab of our website. Individually and collectively over the course of their careers, Skadden Fellows have a profound effect on the quality and delivery of legal services.

1988

• Launch of Skadden Fellowship Foundation to mark firm's 40^th anniversary

1993

• Dubbed "legal Peace Corps" by the Los Angeles Times
• Foundation funds 100^th Fellow

1998

• Advisory Committee commemorates Foundation's 10^th anniversary with a 26^th Fellowship — the first of 52 "extra" Fellowships over the next 15 years

2007

• Foundation funds 500^th Fellow

2008

• Foundation funds record 36 Fellowships, including five by Joe Flom in honor of his late wife, Claire

2011

• Introduction of the Flom Incubator Grant, the first "fund within a fund" to solicit applications from prior Fellows

2012

• First regional reunion symposia for former Fellows

2013

• Skadden Fellowship Foundation and Susan Butler Plum awarded an "Impact Award" from New York Law Journal

2015

• Skadden increases number of Fellowships awarded to 28

2018

• In honor of Skadden's 70th anniversary, the firm extends the program for another 10 years

2019

• Foundation names Kathleen Rubenstein as new Executive Director

2020

• Foundation awards 28 COVID related Flom Incubator Grants
• Foundation funds 900^th Fellow

2022

• Introduction of the Fellows to Fellows (F2F) training program, supporting former Fellows who have been practicing in the public interest arena for at least 10 years, to deliver training sessions to our current and more recent Skadden Fellows.