Five Yale Law Students Receive Skadden Public Interest Fellowships
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom named five Yale Law School students as 2022 Skadden Fellows. The Skadden Fellowship Foundation awarded Nicole Cabanez ’22, Paula Garcia-Salazar ’22, Shariful Khan ’22, Jacquelyn Oesterblad ’22, and Delaram Takyar ’22 two-year fellowships to pursue the practice of public interest law full-time.
Nicole Cabanez ’22
Cabanez will work at the National Consumer Law Center’s Washington, D.C., office representing non-English-speaking consumers and advancing their rights to participate in the American financial system through various consumer protection laws, community education, and policy reform.
Paula Garcia-Salazar ’22
Through the Legal Aid Society of New York, Garcia-Salazar will represent low-income people to secure the release of cellphones seized by police. Garcia-Salazar will also pursue systemic reforms to New York’s property seizure system through impact litigation and implementing due process hearings.
Shariful Khan ’22
Khan will provide direct representation and systemic advocacy for low-income students of color in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia who face racially hostile school environments, including harassment and inappropriate discipline, through Public Justice’s Students’ Civil Rights Project.
Jacq Oesterblad ’22
Oesterblad will provide direct representation and impact litigation on behalf of unhoused people in Arizona, challenging the collection of fines, fees, surcharges, and court debts arising from homelessness-related offenses with Public Justice’s Debtors’ Prison Project.
Delaram Takyar ’22
At the Tennessee Justice Center in Nashville, Takyar will establish a medical-legal partnership with the Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Center to provide legal services for low-income women living in rural Tennessee. The project will focus on clients’ access to healthcare and nutrition benefits to improve maternal and child health outcomes.
The Skadden Fellowship Foundation seeks to improve legal services for the poor and promote economic independence, funding over 900 fellowships since 1988. Ninety percent of Skadden Fellows remain in public service, and many are still working on the same issues as their original fellowship projects. View a complete list of this year’s fellows.
