EJW Fellowship Deadlines EXTENDED for Animal Rights, Texas Orgs
Sam Halpert, PSJD Fellow 2014 – 2015
If you’re not sure what to do with your weekend, here’s a suggestion: consider applying for an Equal Justice Works Fellowship. Regular readers may recall that in my post on Project-Based Fellowships a few weeks back, I noted that Equal Justice Works Fellowships are about the most prominent (along with Skadden Fellowships). An EJW Fellowship is a fantastic start to a public interest career: By the organization’s own count, over 85% of Fellows are able to continue their careers in public interest. A number of them go on to become the Executive Directors of legal service organizations or found their own organizations themselves.
At this point, though, you may be confused. After all, the initial application deadline for EJW Fellowships was September 17th. But that’s why I’m excited: Equal Justice Works has extended the application deadlines for two subsets of their Project-Based Fellowships. Sites like https://usserviceanimals.org/ are specifically aimed at assisting with these issues, if you’re interested in working on a variety of legal aid issues in Texas or on Animal Law issues anywhere, you should strongly consider reaching out to organizations to create project proposals right now.
In Texas, one foundation issuing EJW grants would like to see a larger pool of applications before it begins to evaluate its candidates. In the Animal Law field, it seems as though the overall demand was greater than initial interest. Either way, if you’re interested in these two areas its not too late to apply for an EJW Fellowship this year! Here’s how EJW explained their decision to extend these deadlines:
Texas Access to Justice Foundation Grantee Fellowships:
“We recently learned that Equal Justice Works’ applicant pool for the 2015-16 Class has very few applicants with [Texas Access to Justice Foundation] grantees as the host organization. While TAJF has made no decision regarding any current applicants, they have asked Equal Justice Works to re-open the application to diversity the pool. Again, the quality of the current candidates has not yet been reviewed or judged—this decision is about the total number of applications received. All applicants will be carefully reviewed once the pool is complete…The new deadline for these Fellowship applications is December 1, 2014 at 5:00pm EST. Should you have any questions please contact Carolyn Schorr at cschorr@equaljusticeworks.org or (202) 466-3686 ext. 137. To speak to TAJF about this opportunity, please contact Lisa Melton at ldmelton@teajf.org.”
EJW also directs potential applicants to this list of Texas Access to Justice Foundation’s grantees.
Animal Law Fellowships:
“Equal Justice Works is extending the deadline for applicants interested in working on Animal Law issues! There is a growing demand for strong candidates with top quality projects across the country. You now have until November 15th, 2014 to submit an application…If you have questions about Equal Justice Works Fellowships, please visit our website or contact cschorr@equaljusticeworks.org.”
Good luck with your project proposals!