LEAP at Yale Law School Invites Applicants for 2025-26 Litigation and Program Fellow

By vwsmorris @ 2025-02-23T23:56 (+1)

The Law, Environment & Animals Program (LEAP) at Yale Law School invites applications for a full-time Litigation and Program Fellow for the 2025-26 academic year.

LEAP is a multidisciplinary program at Yale dedicated to two overarching goals. First, we aim to inspire impactful learning and scholarship about the deep legal, scientific, and moral questions that humanity’s treatment of other animals raises. Second, we aim to empower Yale scholars and students to advance positive legal and political change for animals, people, and the environment upon which they depend. The Fellow will be an integral team member of this creative program. A major focus of the Fellow’s work in 2025-26 will be LEAP’s Climate Change & Animal Agriculture Litigation Initiative.

Additional information, including how to apply, can be found at LEAP’s website.

The Fellow will work closely with LEAP’s executive director, legal director, and faculty director to both (1) support and grow the program’s cross-disciplinary initiatives, research, student engagement, and academic programming and (2) be a key contributor to a cross-cutting research initiative focused on the potential for U.S. litigation to hold animal agriculture corporations accountable for their role in the climate crisis.

Principal responsibilities include: 

• Act as an integral member of the Climate Change & Animal Agriculture Litigation Initiative team under the supervision of the LEAP legal director, helping to develop an emerging area of legal activity through research, writing, strategic decision making, relationship building, public education, and collaborating with subject matter experts at Yale and beyond.
• Contributing research, writing, and operational support to existing and new LEAP research initiatives and collaborations, including managing LEAP’s student fellow community and student research grant program. 
• Planning, overseeing, and coordinating engaging LEAP educational events, including in-person speaker events, conferences, and periodic lunch and dinner events. Responsibilities include proposing and inviting speakers; publicizing events; coordinating meals, travel, and IT needs; processing and monitoring expenses, and ensuring adherence to budget and university requirements. 
• Drafting and managing LEAP communications, including writing website articles, maintaining the LEAP website, and email communications.
• Drafting and editing substantive written material.
• May perform other duties as assigned.

The Fellow must reside in the New Haven area and begin the appointment in summer 2025. A J.D. is preferred. In addition to applications from attorneys and graduating law students, LEAP encourages applications from exceptional candidates with demonstrated research ability with other degrees (B.A., M.A., Ph.D., or other). The Fellow will receive a one-year appointment and a competitive salary plus full Yale University benefits.

If you know anyone who might be a good fit for this position, we would be grateful if you could share this opportunity with them!