Advancing the Cause of Workers' Rights
Summer Fellowship Program offers a 10-week immersive experience to first- and second-year law students focusing on advancing workers' rights. The program collaborates with more than 150 law schools and select mentor organizations across the country. In 2023, The Peggy Browning Fund received over 3,700 applications for the Summer Fellowship Program and connected 109 law students with fellowships, including five ºìÌÒÊÓƵ students. Check out their stories and learn more about the work they're doing.
Teresa Dennerlein, 2L
United Steelworkers, Pittsburgh, PA
Teresa graduated summa cum laude and was awarded the President’s Medal from the University of Washington Tacoma. As an undergraduate, Teresa worked with the Labor Solidarity Project to research and assess labor market inequalities and inform policymaking in Washington State. She also advocated for unemployment reduction legislation at the Washington State Senate through the Public Interest, Policy, and Advocacy Program. As a Gates Public Service Law Scholar at the ºìÌÒÊÓƵ, Teresa is committed to serving underrepresented communities. Teresa believes that recognizing the agency, dignity, and humanity of workers is essential to further equity and promote substantive justice in both the workplace and in communities. Having grown up in a community with limited resources, Teresa wants to ensure that those without means have access to safe, respectful, and sustaining workplaces.
Lauren Hunady, 3L
Schwartz, Steinsapir, Dohrmann & Sommers LLP, Los Angeles, CA
Lauren grew up in the deep south; raised by a single mother, she realized quickly the correlative impacts of gender and work. She studied Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Emory University, completing an honors thesis that examined the correlative functions of non-normative gender suppression and employer-capitalist power. Throughout college, she worked in several public interest causes, including abortion rights and criminal justice. In law school, she served as a 2022 Peggy Browning Fellow with Teamsters Local 117; supported University of Washington’s Librarians’ Union strike efforts; and externed with Region 19 of the NLRB. She is on the boards of UW’s National Lawyers’ Guild, Public Interest Law Association, and Students for Labor and Employment Justice. Insofar as the employment relationship is the means by which we receive resources for survival, Lauren is dedicated to ensuring its most equitable operation until a new, liberatory resource-distribution arrangement emerges.
Kayla Lee, 2L
Teamsters Local 117 Tukwila, WA
Kayla Lee was born in Seattle, Washington, and grew up in Snohomish and King Counties, Washington. She studied Global Studies and Hispanic Studies with a minor in Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. In college, Kayla was a student leader of the Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth and Empowerment (FORGE), a student-led organization that works with newly resettled refugees in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After college, Kayla spent a year in Guayaquil, Ecuador on a Fulbright Scholarship. At the end of the program, she worked at the Washington Anti-Trafficking Response Network (WARN) at the International Rescue Committee in Seattle and for four years as an anti-human trafficking advocate and advocacy manager. She primarily worked with labor trafficking survivors and is hoping to advocate for immigrant workers in our communities.
River Hayes, 2L
Drivers Union WA, Affiliated with Teamsters 117, Tukwila, WA
As the daughter of a working-class family with over a decade’s experience in the food service industry, River understands the need for an overhaul of the country’s labor and employment system. Through her work with the Western Service Workers Association, River helped challenge unaffordable utility costs, unethical working conditions, wage theft, illegal evictions, discriminatory housing practices, and other issues affecting the Bay Area’s low-income residents. While there, she reintroduced a column entitled Nuestra America, featuring the stories of the organization’s immigrant members. As an employee in various restaurants and cafes, River organized her coworkers to advocate for fair working conditions and wages. She received a degree in English from the University of California Berkeley and is currently planning to specialize in poverty law.Kass Wolcott, 2L
Drivers Union WA, Affiliated with Teamsters 117, Tukwila, WA
Before attending law school, Kass worked as a welder and machinist for seven years. Raised in West Virginia and California, Kass has lived in New York, Seattle, New Orleans, and rural Washington. Their community experience stems from grassroots mutual aid work, organizing services for incarcerated people, and creating solidarity networks with other LGBTQ people in the building trades. Kass is passionate about the needs of marginalized people in the trades, low-wage workers, incarcerated workers, and the intersections of the carceral state with the ongoing need for workplace justice. These experiences motivated Kass to pursue a law career that will allow them to bring knowledge of the legal system to their organizing communities.