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The Borchard Foundation Center on Law & Aging Invites Applications for the 2024-2026 Borchard Fellowships in Law & Aging

Applications due April 1, 2024

Fellowship Information

The Borchard Fellowship in Law & Aging offers the opportunity to carry out a substantial project related to law and aging in partnership with a host agency. Two two-year fellowships are available to law school graduates interested in, and perhaps already in the early stages of pursuing, an academic and/or professional career in law and aging.

The fellowship is $62,000 a year for two years and is intended as a full-time position only. During the fellowship period, the Center’s director and former fellows are available to help fellows with the further development of their knowledge, skills, and contacts. Fellows may also receive from the Center financial support to attend appropriate professional education program opportunities. A fellow is expected to provide the Center with monthly activities reports. Fellows may live and work where they choose in the United States. Fellows must be either U.S. citizens or legally resident in the U.S.

A legal services or other non-profit organization involved in law and aging must serve as the fellow’s host agency and supervise a fellow’s activities and projects. The fellow’s host agency is responsible for providing employee benefits, employer’s FICA payment, administrative support, workspace, computer, telephone, and email access. 

The two-year fellowship period starts typically on July 1 for those already admitted to the Bar and from not later than September 1 for those who must sit for the Bar exam after law school graduation.

Fellows participate in conference calls and other planned activities with other current and former fellows to encourage networking. Former fellows who successfully complete the fellowship period may also participate in the Center’s Former Fellows Grant Program. 

Examples of some activities and projects by Borchard Fellows:

• Working with an established legal services program to enable vulnerable, isolated, low-income seniors to age-in-place by addressing their unmet legal needs;

• Providing holistic services to older clients facing consumer debt and foreclosure-related concerns;

• Providing direct legal representation and holistic services to older tenants in “clutter cases”;

• Implementation of a courthouse project to help elderly pro se tenants achieve long-term housing stabilization through the interdisciplinary use of legal representation and social services, allowing more elderly tenants to “age in place” at home; 

• Development of mobile clinics to help Chinese-speaking elders improve their access to public benefits and health care;

• Development of a medical-legal partnership for low-income older adults;

• Development of educational outreach efforts and legal services for older LGBTQ+ adults;

• Development of legal services and informational materials to caregivers working on behalf of beneficiaries with cognitive impairment;

• Development of a non-profit senior law resource center providing direct legal services and public education;

• Development of an interdisciplinary elder law clinical program at a major public university law school;

• Development of a mediation component for a legal services program elder law hotline;

• Development of an interdisciplinary project for graduate students in law, medicine, and health advocacy to foster understanding and collaboration between professions;

• Development of training materials and statewide trainings for

lawyers, judges and other court personnel, and social service providers on new comprehensive state guardianship laws;

• Development of legal services programs for older clients in consumer law and small claims matters, end-of-life matters, and in protection from financial and elder abuse for older clients whose first language is other than English;

• Development of free legal clinics for older clients in suburban areas;

• Development, administration, and interpretation of statewide senior legal hotline outcomes study;

• Increasing access to legal representation for older adults in immigration detention facilities;

• Organizing and/or attending national conferences on law and aging issues;
• Writing and publication of law review articles on law and aging issues;

• Writing and publication of state specific, consumer-oriented handbooks on legal issues affecting older persons;

• Analysis of Medicare policies;

• Analysis of Medicaid Home and Community Based Services with a focus on improving racial equity;

• Analysis of SSI non-disability appeals; and

• Teaching elder law and related courses at law schools where fellows reside.

Application Process

Applications are due on April 1, 2024. Applicants must submit a completed online application including an information form, an explanation of the applicant’s planned activities and projects, a statement about the applicant’s interest in law and aging, a current curriculum vitae, a law school transcript, a letter of support from the proposed supervisor, and two other letters of support. 

All fellowship application information and the required online application are available between March 1, 2024, and April 1, 2024, at http://www.borchardcla.org/fellowship-program.

For further information, contact Mary Jane Ciccarello, Director, at .

Kathleen Thaete, a 2019-2020 former fellow, joined HERA (Housing & Economic Rights Advocates) in 2023. Kathleen is a part of HERA's homeownership preservation team, wherein she assists homeowners all across the state of California with foreclosure prevention, property tax delinquencies, mortgage servicer issues, HOA disputes, and more. She is also a part of HERA's consumer law team, and assists with client's debt and credit issues. In addition, HERA resumed in the spring of 2023 an in-person clinic at the Self Help Center in Stanislaus County Superior Court where Kathleen and others are assisting pro per litigants with responding to debt collection lawsuits. Congratulations, Kathleen!

The Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation Board of Directors are delighted to announce the 2023-2025 Borchard Fellows in Law & Aging. They are Alyssa Gordon and Anne Rodriguez-Webb who will begin their fellowships in September, 2023. Congratulations!

Alyssa Gordon will be hosted by the ACLU National Prison Project where she will focus on harnessing underutilized compassionate release laws to help elderly incarcerated people secure early release and better promote decarceration efforts nationwide.  Alyssa’s priorities will also include improving prison health care, eliminating violence and maltreatment, and increasing oversight and accountability in places of detention in America.

Anne Rodriguez-Webb will be working with Housing and Economic Rights Advocates (HERA) where she will lead a project extending the organization’s estate planning services to mono- and limited-lingual Spanish speaking clientele in Southern California.  Anne’s goal is to offer equal access estate planning to Spanish speaking communities.

Since the fellowship program began in 1999, the Center on Law & Aging has provided up to three one-year fellowships a year to encourage the development of new lawyers embarking on a career in law and aging. Starting in the fall of 2022, the fellowships were expanded to two-year terms with the goal of providing substantial support and guidance to new lawyers dedicated to advocating for the legal rights of and improving the quality of life for older adults, including those who are poor or otherwise isolated by language, culture, lack of education, disability, or other barriers. 

Our current fellows--Christian Abbott and Valerie Snow--are doing amazing work. They will continue as fellows through September, 2024.

Please join in welcoming these two wonderful new advocates for older adults to our ranks as Borchard Fellows.

2023-2025

2023-2025

Two two-years fellowships in law and aging are available for 2023-2025. The online application is available between March 1, 2023 and April 3,2023. Interested applicants should submit the required online application by April 3, 2023. See our web page on the fellowships and our online application. 

The Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation Board of Directors are delighted to announce the 2022-2024 Borchard Fellows in Law & Aging. They are Christian Abbott and Valerie Snow who will begin their fellowships in September and October, 2022. Congratulations!

Since the fellowship program began in 1999, the Center on Law & Aging has provided up to three one-year fellowships a year to encourage the development of new lawyers embarking on a career in law and aging. Starting in the fall of 2022, the fellowships are expanded to two-year terms with the goal of providing substantial support and guidance to new lawyers dedicated to advocating for the legal rights of and improving the quality of life for older adults, including those who are poor or otherwise isolated by language, culture, lack of education, disability, or other barriers.

Christian Abbott will be hosted by New York Legal Assistance Group in New York City where he will lead a multi-faceted project representing clients aged 65 and over with discontinuances or reductions in their SSI benefits and SSI-related Medicaid. Valerie Snow will work on guardianship reform issues at SeniorLAW Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

Please join in welcoming these two wonderful new advocates for older adults to our ranks as Borchard Fellows. Our current fellows--Allie Kirchhoff Corrie, Aditi Shah, and Valencia Sherman-Greenup--are doing amazing work. They will continue as fellows through August, 2022.

2022-2024

Two two-years fellowships in law and aging are available for 2022-2024. The online application is available between March 1, 2022 and April 1, 2022. Interested applicants should submit the required online application by April 1, 2022. See our web page on the fellowships and our online application.