Fund Details
Yale Law Journal Fellowship (YLJ)
Competition Type
Yale

Brief Description:

Applications for this fellowship should be submitted via the Law School Fellowships Common Application.

The YLJ Fellowship tracks the application process, eligibility requirements, and project-bases structure of the YPIF fellowships.  However, after completing their year in public service, fellows are expected  to publish reflection pieces on their experiences in the Journal’s online component, the Forum, for which they are paid as additional $5,000 The fellowship seeks to enhance the connections of legal scholarship, practice and service. Available to YLS students and alumni up to three years post-graduation.

Description:

Applications for this fellowship should be submitted via the Law School Fellowships Common Application.

Overview 

In an effort to unite legal scholarship and legal practice, and to advance the public interest, in 2016 the Yale Law Journal partnered with the Yale Law School to provide three one-year public interest fellowships annually. The Fellows, after completing their year of public service, will publish reflections on their experience in the Journal’s online component, the Forum. In addition, the Journal will host a yearly gathering where incoming Fellows are welcomed and outgoing fellows are honored for their work. By sponsoring these Fellows, and by incorporating their legal insights into the YLJ’s scholarship, the Journal seeks to foster a closer relationship between legal scholarship and practice. 

These are one-year fellowships, unless otherwise specifically noted, and students must commit to the work for a full year. Projects are hard to complete even in a year and the amount of time you can devote to the project would lessen the impact of the fellowship on the community you intend to serve and deprive you of valuable experience. If you are unable to do so because you have a clerkship that starts early, you should consider starting your fellowship earlier or postponing your application until after your clerkship. 


Named Fellowships 

The three YLJ Public Interest Fellowships are named after three graduates of the Yale Law School: Jane Matilda Bolin, Justine Wise Polier, and Shirley Adelson Siegel. 

  • In 1931, Jane Matilda Bolin was the first African-American woman to graduate from Yale Law School. She went on to become the first African-American woman to join the New York City Bar Association, the first to join the New York City Law Department, and the first to serve as a judge in the United States. Her judgeship began in 1939 when she was sworn into the bench of the New York City Domestic Relations Court, and she served in this capacity until she retired at the age of seventy. Throughout her career, Ms. Bolin remained committed to civil service, and worked closely with the NAACP, serving on its executive committee. 
  • Justine Wise Polier was an editor of Volume 37 of the Yale Law Journal and graduated from Yale Law School in 1928. Prior to law school, she advocated for labor rights at a woolen mill in Passaic, New Jersey. After graduating, she became the first woman to hold a judicial office above magistrate in New York. She served for thirty-eight years as a New York State Family Court judge. Throughout her career, Polier was seen as a brilliant judge and activist who championed the rights of children and the civil rights of African Americans. After retiring from the bench, she served as director of the Juvenile Justice Division of the Children’s Defense Fund. 
  • Shirley Adelson Siegel was an editor of Volume 49 of the Yale Law Journal and graduated from Yale Law School in 1941. She was the only woman in her law school class and went on to work in public housing and civil rights, ultimately becoming the head of the civil-rights bureau of the New York City Law Department in 1959. There she worked to break up discriminatory apprenticeship requirements in the building trades. She also served as general counsel of the Housing and Development Administration and as New York State’s solicitor general. After taking a few decades off from practicing law in order to teach, she returned to foreclosure prevention work in 2008.
Application and Selection 

The application deadline for the YLJ Fellowship tract of the YPIF Fellowship are exactly the same and students should review the information for the YPIF Fellowship, including the list of materials required for submission. The YPIF application information on the CDO Public Interest fellowship website within the “YLS Fellowships” tab.

Selections are made in a two-step process. First, the faculty committee selects a group of nine fellows. Then, a committee comprised of the current Editor-in-Chief and several additional board members will designate the three YLJ Fellows from among the Fellows chosen by the faculty selection committee. 

Students interested in applying for a YLJ fellowship must meet with Norma D’Apolito, Director of Public Interest, to discuss the scope and details of their fellowship proposals prior to applying. Questions about the fellowship and the application process can be directed to her at norma.dapolito@yale.edu. 

 
*Yale Non-Discrimination Policy and Your Host Organization* 

Your host organization must certify compliance with Yale Law School’s Non-Discrimination Policy. For instructions on confirming organization compliance, please click here. 

 

Terms of the Fellowship 

Fellowships are funded for one year, and generally begin in late summer or fall through the following summer/fall. Each YLJ fellowship provides a one-year stipend of $55,000 (for fellowships starting on or after July 1, 2024) and a health-care contribution of up to $5,000 in cases where health care benefits are not provided by the host organization. In recognition of the additional writing component, YLJ fellows will receive an additional $5,000 payment at the end of their fellowship term. 

Loan Forgiveness

YLS Fellows whose host-organizations are not able to put fellows on their payroll are not considered employees of Yale University nor Yale Law School. In this situation, the stipend will be paid directly to the fellow and a 1099-MISC will be issued to the fellow. Fellows receiving a 1099-MISC do not count as employed by Yale or by the host organization and, therefore, may be considered ineligible for loan forgiveness for the fellowship year. We suggest that you consult with the loan forgiveness office to determine your eligibility.


Questions 

For further information, please contact Norma D’Apolito, Director of Public Interest, at norma.dapolito@yale.edu. 

Application Information:

Applications for this fellowship should be submitted via the Law School Fellowships Common Application.

Applications Should Include: 
  1. Personal statement (500 words maximum) describing the applicant’s experiences with and commitment to public interest, public service, and/or human rights, aspirations for future work, and the ways in which the fellowship will help achieve the applicant’s aspirations.

  2. Concise summary of the proposal (1 paragraph) that includes the place in which the applicant will work and the goals of the project the applicant will undertake. 

  3. Proposal (1500 words maximum) 

    Depending on the office for which you are applying, you may seek funding for either a specific project or a staff position. 

    Project proposal: (a) to pursue a project designed by the applicant in partnership with a sponsoring organization; or (b) to work on an existing project with a host organization.     

    The proposal should address: 1) the problem or need that the project seeks to address;     2) the project's specific goals and how the applicant will meet those goals within the one-year fellowship period (a proposed timetable should be included); 3) a discussion of any relevant background information – legal, historical, factual – necessary to understanding the need for and the goals of your project, as well as any challenges that you anticipate. 

    Staff positions: The proposal should address: 1) nature of the fellowship position and the organization that will host the fellow; 2) type of work the applicant expects to do in the fellowship position, including any particular project the applicant intends to carry out; and 3) a discussion of any relevant background information – legal, historical, factual – necessary to understanding the need for and the goals of the fellowship position, as well as any challenges that you anticipate. 

    Please note that the proposal, whether for a project or a staff position, should not be an essay akin to a substantial or supervised analytic writing, nor is mastery of the area of law expected. Rather, the goal is to explain how you hope to use or change the relevant law or otherwise contribute to the workings of the government and the well-being of its citizens. 

  4. Statement of other fellowships or public interest positions to which the applicant has applied or plans to apply and, if none, an explanation (for example, a gap year, unusual geographic or project-specific need, and so on). Applying for external funding is not a requirement for receiving a YLS-funded fellowship, but is strongly encouraged, absent extenuating circumstances. 

  5. A resume. 

  6. Official YLS Transcript. 

  7. Two letters of recommendation: One from YLS faculty and one from a supervisor or employer. 

  8. RECOMMENDED: An additional letter of recommendation from YLS faculty. 

  9. List of people, including current or former fellows, whom the applicant consulted. The purpose of some of the fellowships is to connect you to a field and to learn from people close to it. We, therefore, expect that before you craft a proposal, you have talked to some of those working in the area. We will provide a list of current and former fellows and their fields so that you may consult with them. We recommend that you discuss the project with 2-4 former fellows or people in the field, whether on the list we provide or not, who can help you think through it. 

  10. Host letter, detailing: 1) organization's purpose and function; 2) a description of how the fellow’s proposed work fits with the host organization’s activities; 3) a description of the supervision the fellow will receive, including identification of the fellow’s immediate supervisor; 4) the resources that will be provided to support the project (e.g., office space, computer, malpractice and/or other insurance, if needed); and 5) a statement addressing the potential for the organization to retain the fellow as a full-time member of the organization’s staff beyond the fellowship year. 6) whether the host org will be able to provide healthcare coverage for the fellow and; 7) an agreement to provide malpractice insurance if applicable to the position. NOTE: Post-\fellowship retention is not a requirement. 

Samples of successful YPIF fellowship applications can be found here. 

Special Eligibility Requirements:

)Students interested in applying for a YLJ fellowship must meet with Norma D’Apolito, Director of Public Interest, to discuss the scope and details of their fellowship proposals prior to applying. Questions about the fellowship and the application process can be directed to her at norma.dapolito@yale.edu. 

 

*Yale Non-Discrimination Policy and Your Host Organization* 

Your host organization must certify compliance with Yale Law School’s Non-Discrimination Policy. For instructions on confirming organization compliance, please click here. 

 

Contact Information:

For questions about this application, please contact Thorsten Wilhelm at thorsten.wilhelm@yale.edu