The Peggy Browning Fund has awarded 10-week summer fellowships to 1Ls Alexia Diorio, Anika Holland, and Gillian Miller.
Peggy Browning Fellowships provide law students with unique, diverse, and challenging work experiences fighting for social and economic justice. These experiences encourage and inspire students to pursue careers in public interest labor law. Peggy Browning Fellows are distinguished students who have not only excelled in law school but who have also demonstrated their commitment to workers’ rights through their previous educational, work, volunteer, and personal experiences. Securing a Peggy Browning Fellowship is highly competitive, with over 400 applicants this year competing for the honor, so to have three among our first year class is a testament to their outstanding qualifications.
Alexia Diorio ’20 will be a fellow at Legal Aid at Work in San Francisco, CA. Before law school Alexia worked as an organizer for Working Washington, where she organized low-wage workers, especially baristas. Her work contributed to the enactment of the Secure Scheduling Ordinance in Seattle. She was also a member of her staff union bargaining team and labor management committee. Alexia studied economics and public health in college, and prior to her organizing work she worked as an assistant analyst in the Congressional Budget Office’s Health, Retirement, and Long-Term Analysis division. During that time she also volunteered at the Employment Justice Center and became passionate about workers’ rights. Alexia plans to work in public interest law and hopes to continue to advocate for the rights of low-wage workers. Alexia is involved with the Employment and Labor Law Journal, and volunteers at a tenants’ rights clinic.
Anika Holland ’20 will be fellow at Feinberg Jackson Worthman & Wasow, LLP in Oakland, CA. Anika earned her A.B. in English from Ohio University, with a focus on feminist literary criticism and science fiction. She chose Berkeley Law because of its extensive public interest and social justice program. As a Berkeley Law student, she has participated in two student-lead pro bono projects: Name & Gender Change Workshop and the Survivor Advocacy Project. As a volunteer for the Name & Gender Change Workshop, she helps trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming clients obtain identity-affirming name and gender change court orders. Next year, she will co-lead the Survivor Advocacy Project, which facilitates access to legal and health services for survivors of sexual assault and assists with Title IX case research. Anika is a production editor for the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice and an executive editor for the Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labor Law. Her favorite things about living in the Bay Area are the friendly neighborhood cats and the wide array of local produce.
Gillian Miller ’20 will be a fellow at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs in Washington, DC. Prior to law school, Gillian worked at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where she organized programming for Council members around the world. Through planning these meetings, she became interested the impact that workers issues have on international and domestic policy, and vice versa. She is particularly interested in the intersections of workers’ rights, race, and gender. Gillian studied international relations with a concentration on gender and culture at the University of Southern California. At Berkeley Law, she participates in restorative justice circles at San Quentin and is a member of the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law. She sings with the law school a cappella group, the Pro Bonotes, and next year will be on the boards of the Women of Berkeley Law and the Consumer Advocacy and Protection Society. Gillian chose Berkeley Law because of the strong community of students and faculty and its great clinical programs. She has loved her first year at Berkeley Law, especially because of the passionate and supportive community of students at the law school.