Dory Mitros Durham, a 2006 graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, has been named a 2007 Skadden Fellow by the Skadden Fellowship Foundation.
Durham is a judicial clerk for Judge Kenneth Ripple of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, who also is a professor of law at Notre Dame. She intends to use the fellowship to direct an immigrants’ civil rights initiative at Indiana Legal Services in South Bend. The initiative will address the growing problems of immigrant exploitation and discrimination within the South Bend community, with a particular focus on families, schools, workplaces and public agencies. The project also will provide direct representation to immigrants, enforcing a broad spectrum of legal rights.
Durham’s inspiration for the initiative came from her work in the Notre Dame Legal Aid Clinic, where she observed that many of her former clients continued to face unlawful barriers to full participation in community life, despite having successfully and often painfully struggled to obtain legal status in the United States.
The Skadden Fellowship Foundation was established in 1988 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates law firm. The foundation, described as “a legal Peace Corps” by The Los Angeles Times, provides funding for graduating law students who wish to devote their professional lives to providing legal services to the poor, the elderly, the homeless and the disabled, as well as those deprived of their civil or human rights.
Notre Dame president emeritus, Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., was a member of the original 12-member board of trustees who selected the fellows in 1988.
Contact: Carol Jambor-Smith at 574-631-6891 or cjambors@nd.edu
Originally published by at newsinfo.nd.edu on January 16, 2007.