Two Alumni Pursue Public Interest Fellowship Opportunities

Two recent Northwestern Pritzker Law graduates have begun their careers in public interest as recipients of national fellowships. These 2025 graduates have dedicated their time and skills to causes such as advocating for incarcerated women who have reported sexual abuse and developing legal and policy strategies to address the harms of mass incarcerations. To help talented graduates launch public interest careers, external fellowships award students with competitive salaries, plus medical insurance coverage, to support one or two years of full-time service as a lawyer at a nonprofit or government agency.

“Post-graduate fellowships like the Equal Justice Works and Polikoff-Gautreaux Fellowships are vital pathways for our graduates to launch impactful public interest careers,” said Leah Gould, Assistant Dean of Public Interest. “The Public Interest Center is honored to help guide and support fellows as they take these first, transformative steps in their public service careers.”

Northwestern Pritzker Law is a leader in preparing students for public interest careers and pro bono work, with an unparalleled focus on advancing social justice. The Public Interest Center provides strategic leadership of key public interest activities on campus and to advise, support, and foster strong commitments to public interest and help shape the next generation of public interest attorneys and leaders. Student-led groups such as the Public Interest Law Group also help cultivate a strong public interest culture on campus.

Maggie Bourke (JD ’25) is an Equal Justice Works Fellow working at the Uptown People’s Law Center (UPLC). Her interest in pursuing a law degree originated during her time as an undergraduate at University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she worked with incarcerated individuals. During her time at Northwestern Pritzker Law, she worked as an intern/extern at Cabrini Green Legal Aid, UPLC, and the Northern District Court of Illinois; as a clinic student at the MacArthur Justice Center; and as a tutor with the Northwestern Prison Education Program. Now back at the Uptown People’s Law Center, her fellowship project consists of a collaboration between UPLC, Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, and pro-bono partners at law firms. Together they have filed seven lawsuits on behalf of incarcerated women who reported sexual abuse at Illinois’ primary prison for women, Logan Correctional Center. Bourke hopes that through this litigation, the plaintiffs will be able to hold their abusers at Logan accountable for the harm they caused, and force Logan to implement structural change to protect the women it houses. As a fellow, Maggie will be working on these civil rights cases, public education, resource development, policy solutions, and developing partnerships with organizations devoted to ending sexual violence and exploitation.

April Guevara Espinoza (JD ’25) is a Polikoff-Gautreaux Fellow with Impact for Equity, a public interest law and policy center based in Chicago. April is originally from the border-town Yuma, Arizona, and moved to Chicago for law school. April’s passion for changing the criminal legal system for the betterment of Black and Latiné communities began at a very young age. Her interest in criminal law was confirmed during her 1L summer when she interned at the Cook County Public Defender’s Office in their post-conviction appeals division. During her 2L summer, she interned at Impact for Equity’s Criminal Legal Systems team and discovered she wanted to begin her career focusing on changing how the criminal legal system operates through policy and advocacy. She will continue working with Impact for Equity as their Polikoff-Gautreaux Fellow to develop legal and policy strategies to reduce the harms of mass incarceration in Illinois, increase public safety and police accountability, and explore alternatives to crisis response in Chicago. While at Northwestern, April completed an externship at Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and spent two years in the Bluhm Legal Clinic’s Movement Lawyering and Civil Rights Litigation clinic working on cases defending the civil rights of Black and Latiné individuals. She spent over 200 hours volunteering with many organizations, including the Northwestern Prison Education Program, Instituto Del Progreso Latino, and the International Refugee Assistance Project. April was awarded a John Paul Stevens Fellowship for her dedicated interest in public interest law and published her article Humanizing the Mexican Migrant in the Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy.