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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Amelia Caramadre
Amelia Caramadre is a 2022-2023 Justice Catalyst Fellow working on access to medication for opioid use disorder within the carceral and rehab industrial complexes with Northeastern University’s Health in Justice Action Lab.
Andrew Ntim
Andrew Ntim is a 2022-2023 Justice Catalyst Fellow pursuing litigation and policy strategies to fight police terror against people experiencing homelessness and living in poverty in California with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the SF Bay Area.
Marisol Dominguez-Ruiz
Marisol Dominguez-Ruiz is a 2022-2023 Justice Catalyst Fellow working to enforce underused disability laws in carceral settings with ACLU's National Prison Project.
Samuel Kuhn
Samuel Kuhn is a 2021-2022 Justice Catalyst/Public Rights Project Joint Fellow serving as the first in-house specialist designated to support the New York State Attorney General’s Office in exercising its newly-expanded authority to structurally reform police in the state.
TJ Grayson
TJ Grayson is a 2021-2022 Justice Catalyst Fellow at the Advancement Project using the practices of movement lawyering to help abolitionist organizers address the influences of police unions in pursuit of their goal.
Lee Ann Felder-Heim
Lee Ann Felder Heim is a 2021-2022 Justice Catalyst Fellow at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area working to stop private, for-profit prison corporations from harming detained immigrants in their custody, hold them accountable for the harms they have already inflicted, and liberate immigrants who are currently in harm’s way.
Sonya Levitova
Sonya Levitova is a 2020-2021 Justice Catalyst Fellow with Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel focusing on holding federal officials accountable for their violations of incarcerated people's rights.
Mackenzie Halter
Mackenzie Halter is a 2020-2021 Justice Catalyst Fellow at the Debt Collective designing and implementing a Bail Debt Dispute Tool.
Maya Ragsdale
Maya Ragsdale is a 2020-2021 Justice Catalyst Fellow at Dream Defenders providing legal, policy, and strategic support to abolitionist organizers fighting to end pretrial detention and close jails in Miami-Dade County.
Michael Saavedra
Michael Saavedra is a 2020-2021 Justice Catalyst Fellow at Youth Justice Coalition working to remove barriers that block many formerly incarcerated individuals from becoming lawyers.
Yazmine Nichols
Yazmine Nichols is a 2020-2021 Justice Catalyst Fellow at ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project challenging unjust pretrial conditions of release and eliminating pretrial profiteering through a targeted campaign centering women of color.
Connor McCleskey
Connor McCleskey is a 2019-2020 Justice Catalyst Fellow at Worth Rises working to empower incarcerated people and pro se litigants to fight against financial exploitation in the criminal legal system.
Ian Stringham
Ian Stringham is a 2019-2020 Justice Catalyst Fellow and Executive Director at California Legal Research working to expand access to law libraries for people in California prisons and jails.
Liza Weisberg
Liza Weisberg is a 2017-2019 Justice Catalyst Fellow at the ACLU of New Jersey focusing on challenging the abuses of civil asset forfeiture.
fellowships@justicecatalyst.org
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