NY LEND's Law Fellowship Is Featured in the New York Law Journal
March 30, 2012
Students at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law have an opportunity to learn about legal and medical issues affecting the disabled through a unique fellowship offered at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.
The fellowship, started in 2010, provides a $4,000 stipend and academic credit to fellows for their work as a research assistant and with Einstein's Children's Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center, which cares for more than 7,000 youths with developmental disabilities each year.
Funding for the fellowship comes from the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) program, which is administered by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Einstein supports 13 to 15 year-long fellowships each year, providing graduate level interdisciplinary training to professionals from fields outside medicine. In the past, Einstein fellowships have been awarded to students in the fields of psychology, social work, speech pathology and occupational therapy.
When Sheryl Dicker, the former executive director of the New York's Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children, joined the staff at Einstein three years ago to teach medical students about the law, she suggested that a legal fellow be added. "Lawyers essentially invented the field of disability rights," Ms. Dicker said in an interview, noting that lawyers play a key role in securing services for disabled children by drafting legislation, litigating on their behalf and advocating for the rights of the disabled.
Einstein is the first school to offer an ongoing legal LEND fellowship. "We have 7 million kids in special ed in this country and only a handful of lawyers that know about this work," Ms. Dicker said.
The first LEND legal fellow, Kristina Majewski, graduated last year from Cardozo Law and is a disability policy fellow with the Association of University Centers on Disabilities in Washington, D.C. Cynthia Rivera, a second-year law student, is the current fellow. A fellow for next year, Ms. Dicker said, will be chosen this month.
The original article can be found here.
