The Peggy Browning Fund has awarded 10-week summer fellowships to two BC Law students, Michael Casagrande ’19 and Gabriel Frumkin ’20. The application process is highly competitive, and the award is a tribute to their outstanding qualifications.
In 2018, the Peggy Browning Fund will support over 80 public interest labor law fellowships nationwide. Securing a Peggy Browning Fellowship is not an easy task, with over 400 applicants this year competing for the honor. 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.
Casagrande will be a Peggy Browning Fellow at Levy Ratner, PC in New York, NY. An Upstate New Yorker, he has a history working and volunteering for labor unions. Prior to attending law school, he interned for New York State United Teachers and American Federation of Teachers. He has been passionate about workers’ rights for his entire life and wants to use his legal career to help reinvigorate the labor movement. He spent last fall researching and writing about the legality of arbitration clauses in mandatory employment contracts. He is currently researching and writing about whether graduate employees at religious colleges and universities have the right to organize under the National Labor Relations Act. He is excited to clerk at Levy Ratner this summer.
Frumkin’s Peggy Browning Fellowship will be at Schwerin Campbell Barnard Iglitzin & Lavitt, LLP in Seattle, WA. He first became active in the labor movement in high school, when he participated in informational pickets outside hotels and volunteered with the state AFL-CIO. During college, he continued to immerse himself in the movement, and interned with an SEIU local in Boston. After graduating, he worked as an organizer with AFSCME in higher education and health care before serving on political campaigns, including those of Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Ed Markey. Immediately prior to law school, Frumkin worked at an environmental organization in Washington, DC. In addition to being a Peggy Browning Fellow, he received a 2018 Michael Weiner Scholarship for Labor Studies from the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA).
The Peggy Browning Fund is a not for-profit organization established in memory of Margaret A. Browning, a prominent union-side attorney who was a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 1994 until 1997. 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.
Photo, from left: Michael Casagrande and Gabriel Frumkin