Our Fellows
Meet the brilliant, creative legal fellows driving high-impact systemic change to advance economic and social justice
Learn more about the Justice Catalyst Fellowship and the Jonathan W. Cuneo COSAL/Justice Catalyst Fellowship
Lydia Dal Nogare
Lydia Dal Nogare is a 2024-2025 Justice Catalyst Fellow, working at Upper Seven Law in Helena, Montana, where she will support ongoing litigation and identify additional opportunities for legal action to protect rights from state government overreach. Her project will utilize her organizing background to amplify the voices of those directly affected by harmful laws.
DaJonna Richardson
DaJonna Richardson is a 2024-2025 Jonathan W. Cuneo COSAL/Justice Catalyst Fellow working at Cuneo, Gilbert & LaDuca, LLP, which is a premier firm that arms consumers, workers and small businesses with tools for accountability against big businesses and cartels to challenge price-fixing, monopolization, mergers that reduce competition, and agreements between competitors that restrict supply or output. The Fellowship will have a particular focus on facilitating the advancement of underrepresented individuals within the field, emphasizing inclusivity, fairness, and equal opportunity.
Jason Taper
Jason Taper is a 2024-2025 Justice Catalyst Fellow, working with the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.) to use class action litigation to hold data brokers accountable.
Alyssa (Lee) Kennedy
Alyssa (Lee) Kennedy is a 2024-2025 Justice Catalyst Fellow working with the Legal Action Center to promote healthcare access and health equity for individuals with substance use disorders by combating discrimination in healthcare settings.
Vibha Kannan
Vibha Kannan is a 2024-2025 Justice Catalyst Fellow working at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project to support community-led organizing campaigns and aid immigrants in fighting the abusive practices of for-profit immigration bond companies through legislative advocacy and litigation under New York’s newly-enacted ban on electronic monitoring and unreasonable fees.
Olivia Fritz
Olivia Fritz is a 2024-2025 Justice Catalyst Fellow at the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, where she works to return due process rights to low-income people on parole by building litigation to ensure the appointment of counsel for individuals at their parole revocation hearings.
Leah Fessler
Leah Fessler is a 2024-2025 Justice Catalyst Fellow working at MacArthur Justice Center Missouri in St. Louis, where she will fight to end Missouri Department of Corrections’ discriminatory policies of denying access to all three medications for opioid use disorder in Missouri prisons.
Poonam Daryani
Poonam Daryani will be joining Pregnancy Justice, a legal advocacy organization that fights to ensure that people do not lose their rights because of their capacity for pregnancy or pregnancy outcome, with a focus on those most at risk of state control and criminalization.
Michelle Dahl
Michelle Dahl will join the National Police Accountability Project, where she will create a comprehensive resource hub and network to empower public defenders in developing civil rights litigation to address constitutional violations they see in their communities.
Andrea Ashburn
Andrea Ashburn is a Justice Catalyst Fellow at the New York Legal Assistance Group where they develop impact litigation lawsuits in the areas of consumer protection and tenants’ rights.
Ezra Ritchin
Ezra Ritchin is a 2024-2025 Justice Catalyst Fellow working with the Freedom Community Center and Dami Animashaun on targeted over-detention litigation, individual damages suits on behalf of survivors of state violence, and legal support for organizers fighting to close jails.
D Dangaran
D Dangaran is a 2023-2024 Justice Catalyst Fellow working as Director of Gender Justice at Rights Behind Bars, where they focus on protecting the rights of trans people in prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers.
Blake Welborn
Blake Welborn is a 2023–2024 Justice Catalyst/Public Rights Project Joint Fellow working to address local issues of pollution and environmental justice at the Harris County Attorney's Office.
Andrew Loewen
Andrew Loewen is a 2023-2024 Justice Catalyst/Public Rights Project Fellow working at the DC Office of the Attorney General, empowering workers and small businesses with knowledge, resources, and legal actions through a campaign promoting antitrust enforcement privately and by the DC Office of the Attorney General, focusing on the unlawful non-compete agreements that restrict worker freedom and the bid-rigging that shuts out small businesses.
Kat Kerwin
Kat Kerwin is a 2023-2024 Justice Catalyst Fellow working at Local Progress to combat racial disparities in traffic enforcement by building a coalition of municipal elected leaders to pass and implement driving equity policies nationwide.
Yulie Landan
Yulie Landan is a 2023-2024 Justice Catalyst Fellow working at National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild to conduct systemic litigation on behalf of immigrants detained in Louisiana and Virginia to shut down detention centers and provide direct representation to individuals that remain detained while decarceration efforts continue.
Sarah Ortlip-Sommers
Sarah Ortlip-Sommers is a 2023-2024 Justice Catalyst Fellow working at the Family Justice Law Center, which uses impact litigation to challenge unconstitutional policies and practices in the child welfare system that inflict illegal and horrific abuse on families caught up in its web.
Abigail Cruz
Abigail Cruz is a 2023-2024 Justice Catalyst Fellow supporting local community-led organizing campaigns fighting to improve working conductions, redress wage theft and combat retaliation among farmworkers in California's Central Coast region.
Nicola Morrow
Nicola Morrow is a 2023–2024 Justice Catalyst Fellow working to combat government surveillance in criminal abortion cases with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers' Fourth Amendment Center.
fellowships@justicecatalyst.org
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