Finding community at law school is vital, particularly while navigating the rigors of legal study. For a lucky group of Stanford Law School (SLS) students, the Civil Justice Fellowship is offering both community and exciting scholarly opportunities.
“My favorite part of being a student fellow is definitely my fellow student fellows,” says Catherina Xu, JD ’24, a 2023/24 Rhode Center Civil Justice Fellow.
The program brings together a tightly knit cohort of roughly a dozen second- and third-year law students to spend one or two academic years working on the Rhode Center for the Legal Profession’s core research and policy-making projects. Founded in 2008, the Rhode Center takes a multidisciplinary approach to shaping the future of legal services and seeks to make the civil justice system more equitable, accessible, and transparent.
“I am so proud of the many different things the Rhode Center has done over the last few years, but I might actually be proudest of this program,” says David Freeman Engstrom, LSVF Professor in Law, of the two-year-old Fellows Program.
David and Nora Freeman Engstrom have co-directed the Rhode Center since 2021, having created the Civil Justice Fellows program in 2022. “It’s the Center’s jewel in the crown,” David says. “We are creating and nurturing a pipeline of talented young lawyers who care about these important issues.”
One goal of the Fellows’ program, according to Nora Freeman Engstrom, Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law, is to foster a sense of collaboration and community among the participating students while encouraging their long-term commitment to ensuring the legal profession lives up to its highest ideals. “We wanted to create a site of multi-generational exchange,” she says. “We wanted to create a mechanism so that students, professors, and the Center’s amazing staff could work side-by-side to advance the Rhode Center’s research and initiatives.”
The Fellows work on all of the Rhode Center’s core projects, including the:
- Filing Fairness Project, an ambitious partnership with seven states to help courts modernize and simplify filing systems;
- Litigation Transparency Project, which uses machine-learning tools to explore how mechanisms like protective orders and secret settlements affect the justice system and public’s right to litigation information;
- Principles Project with the American Law Institute, aiming to improve court processes for high-volume, low-dollar-value civil claims in areas like eviction and debt collection;
- Multi-District Litigation project to enhance the efficiency, equity, and transparency of federal court claims consolidation; and
- Collaboration with the Los Angeles County Superior Court to aid litigants in eviction, debt collection, and family law cases.
Being a Rhode Center Civil Justice Fellow is distinct from typical research assistantships, notes 2024 Fellow Jess Lu, JD ’24. “You’re not just supporting an established academic with their research,” she says, describing a “feeling of a more equal footing between the students and the professors.”
The bonds formed between Fellows are as crucial as those between students and faculty, adds Kelsea Jeon, JD ’25. “We have this common interest and this common mission to promote access to justice, and I think that really brings us together.”
While each Fellow is assigned a particular project, they engage in the full array of the cohort’s research activities, collaborating, editing each other’s work, and participating in vibrant roundtables and workshops. “We are, and we see one another, as teammates,” says Nora, emphasizing the program’s community-building aspect.
Catherina Xu praises the program: “It has been such a wonderful opportunity to get to know students with similar interests in increasing access to justice.”
During her fellowship, Kelsea Jeon collaborated with David on research centered around advancing access through the responsible relaxation of certain legal practice regulations. “A big part of it has been trying to understand what cities and states are doing already, and to highlight their experience on the ground,” she says.
Aaron Schaffer-Neitz, JD ’24, highlights the high level of responsibility and trust given to Fellows. “I think the second or third week that I was working on my project, professors were relying on my opinion on important questions,” he says. “They were allowing me to help shape the direction of our research. And I don’t know in what other context, a student would be given so much responsibility so early.”
Faculty co-directors gain more than just student assistance on core projects from the fellowship program. “My favorite part of overseeing the Civil Justice Fellows Program is just getting to spend time with the Fellows and getting to know them,” says David Freeman Engstrom. “So many Stanford Law students are just absolutely remarkable people.”
For more information, visit Stanford Law School.