Two U-M law students receive Skadden Fellowships ANN ARBOR—Two University of Michigan Law School students have been awarded the prestigious 2003 Skadden Fellowships, which allow recipients to provide legal services to the poor, homeless, elderly and those deprived of human or civil rights. The recipients are third-year students Christine Vaughn of Denver and Sara Woodward of Holland, Mich. Since 1995, 14 U-M Law School graduates have been named Skadden Fellows. Vaughn will represent Washington, D.C.-area children with serious mental health needs who are removed from their families and community and needlessly institutionalized. She will be working at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, drawing on its expertise in the housing and disability fields. "It’s not very often that people come to law school—and faced with repaying expensive educational loans—are still able to do exactly what they said they wanted to do in their admissions essay," Vaughn said. Woodward’s project will focus on the educational needs and outcomes of at-risk youth. She will provide education-related legal services to foster youth, homeless children and students in alternative educational settings while working with the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL), a Bay Area organization that advocates for low-income children nationwide. "Receiving the Skadden Fellowship is the perfect opportunity to use my legal skills to promote laws and policies to improve the educational outcomes for low-income children. I’m very excited about the opportunity to represent these children, both locally and nationally, who would otherwise be without such an advocate," Woodward said. Founded in 1988, the Skadden Fellowship Foundation awards 25 fellowships each year to graduating law students and outgoing judicial clerks nationwide. Skadden provides each fellow with a salary and fringe benefits.

Additional fellowship information is available at http://www.skadden.com/SkaddenFellowshipIndex.ihtml

The U-M Law School’s Office of Public Service’s Website is: http://www.law.umich.edu/currentstudents/PublicService/index.htm