Immigrant Justice Corps Fellowship: Better Legal Help for Immigrants

"In the next several days, the deans of the nation’s top law schools will be notified of a new job opportunity for their graduating students.  Applicants must be high achievers who want to be part of a groundbreaking start-up, live in New York City, train with veteran lawyers and help create a new paradigm in immigration representation.  The call comes from the Immigrant Justice Corps, a new group that received a life-giving injection on Tuesday when the board of the Robin Hood Foundation, a poverty-fighting philanthropy, approved more than $1.3 million in funding.  The initiative is the long-nurtured idea of Robert A. Katzmann, the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, who has for years campaigned to redress a grave problem: the shortage of competent legal representation for immigrants, particularly those of modest means facing deportation.  The group’s plan is to recruit 25 graduating law students or recent graduates, immerse them in immigration law and then farm them out to community-based organizations.  The young lawyers would commit to at least two years of service and as many as three." - New York Times, Jan. 29, 2014.