(Top row, from left to right): Albert Suarez, David Fisher, Colleen Mulholland and Kyle Shen
(Middle row, from left to right): Adelaide Schwartz, Bianca Scott, Veronica Portillo and Christopher Lamoureux
(Bottom row, from left to right): Rhiannon Hamam, Leah Glowacki and Amanda Addison
The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice selected 11 University of Texas School of Law students for summer and fall Rapoport Center fellowships. The fellows will work with non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations in the United States and abroad on a variety of projects including: protecting the fundamental rights of refugees, providing legal services to individuals with mental disabilities, advocating on behalf of low-income workers and assisting international courts and tribunals in prosecuting human rights and humanitarian violations.
“We are proud of the students who received the fellowships and of the work they will be undertaking with important human rights organizations and institutions,” said Karen Engle, co-director of the Rapoport Center. “As they support marginalized individuals and groups while enhancing their own legal advocacy skills and knowledge, they will help us further the mission of the Rapoport Center.”
The recipients of this year’s fellowships are:
Amanda Addison, ’15, will intern this fall in the Office of the Co-Prosecutors for the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials, at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The ECCC brings to trial those who were most responsible for the atrocities committed under the Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s. Addison will perform legal research and analysis, and generally assist in building criminal cases for the prosecution. Last summer, Addison interned for The Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Before law school, she worked for the Dream Project, a K-12 education program in Los Angeles. She then served two years with the United States Peace Corps in Mali. Addison was enrolled in the Human Rights Clinic this past spring, is active in the Pro Bono Program, is a member of the Texas Journal on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights, and will serve as communications director of the Human Rights Law Society next year. This summer she will intern for the Reparations Division of the International Center for Transitional Justice in New York City.
David Fisher, ’15, will intern this fall at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Located in The Hague, the ICTY is a United Nations court that tries individuals for war crimes that took place during the 1990s conflicts in the Balkans. Fisher will be working in the Trial Chambers, where he will perform legal research, prepare memoranda and assist with drafting legal documents. Last summer, Fisher interned as a Rapoport Fellow with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C. In his time at Texas Law, Fisher has volunteered with pro bono projects at Catholic Charities of Central Texas and Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, and has worked in both the Immigration and Human Rights clinics. He is currently a research fellow at Texas Law’s Energy Center, and he served this year as symposium director of the Texas Environmental Law Journal and as an articles and notes editor on the Texas International Law Journal. Fisher will work this summer at the Worker and Immigrant Rights Clinic at Yale Law School. After law school, he hopes to pursue a career in public interest law, focusing on the convergence of international law, human rights and environmental policy.
Leah Glowacki, ’16, will work at Mental Health Advocacy Services (MHAS) in Los Angeles this summer. MHAS provides free legal services to individuals with mental disabilities. Glowacki will contribute to MHAS’s special education, government benefits, fair housing, juvenile justice and disability law projects. As an undergraduate, Glowacki studied international relations and Spanish, interned at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and spent four summers working at camps that serve children with serious illnesses. Before coming to law school, Glowacki worked as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Puebla, Mexico. During her first year at UT, she provided Spanish translation services at legal aid clinics and volunteered with Youth Court and Texas Appleseed. She hopes to pursue a career that will allow her to explore her related interests in international human rights, children’s rights and juvenile justice.
Rhiannon Hamam, ’16, will intern this summer in New Orleans with Orleans Public Defenders (OPD), a community-oriented defender office built upon the zealous defense of the poor. At OPD, Hamam will assist attorneys in all stages of criminal litigation, including performing legal research, conducting investigations and drafting motions. While in law school, Hamam has worked with Texas Defender Service, assisting the organization in its work to evaluate the quality of representation provided to indigent capital murder defendants in Texas. Before law school, Hamam had a number of roles and experiences that led her to focus in public interest law: she provided translation services to survivors of torture in mental health appointments, taught fifth grade in Dallas, conducted public health outreach for refugees and undocumented immigrants, and worked at a shelter for survivors of intimate partner violence. She hopes to pursue a career in human rights and public interest law with a focus on domestic prisoner rights and Palestine.
Christopher Lamoureux, ’16, will split his time this summer between two non-governmental organizations. For the first half of the summer, he will intern at the Icelandic Human Rights Center (IHRC) in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he will research trends in international human rights law and promote human rights awareness. For the second half of the summer, he will intern at the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) in New Delhi, India, where he will be engaged in hands-on legal work including fact findings, fieldwork, petition drafting and legal aid. At Texas Law, Lamoureux has been active in the Human Rights Law Society and the Texas Journal on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights. In the fall, he will be enrolled in the Human Rights Clinic. He hopes to work in international human rights after he graduates.
Colleen Mulholland, ’15, will intern with the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies in San Francisco this summer. Through legal training, impact litigation, policy development and research, the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies protects the fundamental human rights of refugee women, children, LGBT individuals and others who flee persecution in their home countries. As an intern, Mulholland will conduct legal research on trends in asylum law. Prior to law school, she taught bilingual pre-kindergarten in Houston with Teach For America. Last summer, she worked at Lawyers Without Borders as a Rapoport Center Fellow. At Texas Law, Mulholland has been active as a Society Program Mentor for first year students, a Pro Bono Scholar and a trip leader for the annual Pro Bono in January trip to the Rio Grande Valley. She intends to pursue a human rights and public interest career with a focus on Latin America.
Veronica Portillo, ’16, will intern this summer at the Equal Justice Center in Austin. The Equal Justice Center provides services to low-income workers to enforce their employment rights. Portillo will assist in litigation and negotiations to help clients recover unpaid wages and combat unfair labor practices. As an undergraduate, she studied human rights and government through the UT Humanities program. During her first year of law school, Portillo participated in Street Law and served as a staff editor of the Texas Journal for Civil Liberties and Civil Rights. After graduation she hopes to pursue a career in public interest law.
Adelaide Schwartz, ’16, will intern this summer with the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) in Cape Town, South Africa. The LRC is an independent, client-based, nonprofit public interest law clinic that works with vulnerable and marginalized populations in South Africa. Its mission is to ensure that the principles, rights and responsibilities enshrined in the 1996 South African Constitution are respected, promoted, protected and fulfilled. Schwartz will help address client needs and overall legal reform initiatives relating to socio-economic rights, particularly land rights. Specifically, she will conduct legal research for the land rights litigation unit and perform general LRC client interviews. This internship will build upon her undergraduate studies in post-apartheid politics, economics and gender at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Prior to law school, she was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Burkina Faso and a Sub Saharan Africa Analyst at Stratfor Inc. Schwartz plans to pursue a legal career that helps ensure sustainable growth and the promotion of basic human rights in developing Sub Saharan African countries.
Bianca Scott, ’15, will intern this summer for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C., where she will conduct research, prepare reports and analyze policies related to human rights. A body of the Organization of American States, the Commission works to promote and protect human rights in the Americas. Scott’s passion for this field first began during her undergraduate studies, where a course on the accountability of international human rights abuses sparked her interest in law school. Before coming to Texas Law, she taught English in the Balearic Islands for the Spanish Ministry of Education and spent the summer as a volunteer on an organic farm in Portugal. Scott’s experience with human rights includes an internship with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Panama last summer, and the Human Rights Clinic during the fall of 2013. This fall, she will be studying abroad in Switzerland, but is returning to Austin for her final semester in 2015, and plans to pursue a career in international human rights law.
Kyle Shen, ’15, will travel to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, this summer to work for the Office of the Co-Prosecutor at the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials. As an undergraduate political science major, Shen focused on political and cultural processes of colonization and decolonization. After college, he received a Fulbright Grant to teach English and to research immigrant labor issues in Macau, China. During his 1L summer, he worked as an intern for Judge Cathy Cochran at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. At Texas Law, Shen was a Human Rights Scholar at the Rapoport Center during the 2013-14 academic year, participated in the Human Rights Clinic and is the submissions editor for Volume 50 of the Texas International Law Journal. His interests include labor, immigration and the human impact of economic development in East and Southeast Asia.
Albert Suarez IV, ’15, is the third recipient of the Charles Moyer Summer Human Rights Fellowship, which honors the life and work of Charles Moyer, whose professional career has been devoted to the international protection of human rights. Suarez will work this summer at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for International Justice & Human Rights in Washington, D.C. During his time at the RFK Center, Suarez will serve as a legal intern for the organization’s International Strategic Litigation Unit, which is tasked with supporting high impact human rights litigation across the globe. Suarez spent the previous summer working as a research assistant and studying comparative civil liberties at Universitat Wien Juridicum in Vienna, Austria. After graduation, he plans on continuing his education in legal theory, political theory, ethics and economic theory.
The fellowships, which provide stipends for travel costs and living expenses, are made possible by the generous support of: The Planethood Foundation; Scott Hendler of HendlerLaw PC, who donated the funds for the Charles Moyer Summer Human Rights Fellowship; and the Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Karpen Moffitt Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Law. For more information about the Rapoport Center at Texas Law, contact: 512-232-4857 or humanrights@law.utexas.edu.