Supporting the Public Interest

Mary Ingram ’23 has a passion for investigative work, something she feeds with her current role at Brooklyn Defender Services. The former political science major might not have discovered that passion, however, were it not for her internship there. And that internship might not have been possible were it not for her participation in the Liman Law Fellows Program. “I became interested in immigration law during an internship the year before and wanted to continue with it the following summer but couldn’t afford it,” Ingram says. “My fellowship allowed me to work on investigations, going out into the field and gathering evidence for our clients. I loved the work.” 

Today, Ingram continues her investigative work with the organization and even manages the current roster of interns. “I’m so happy Barnard is a part of Liman,” she says. “It affirmed this is the right field for me and completely changed the trajectory of my career.”

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Ellen Fogelson Liman ’57, president of the Liman Foundation, established the program at Barnard in 2005 in memory of her husband, Arthur Liman, an esteemed attorney. The summer fellowships are coordinated in partnership with the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest at Yale Law School, which was named in honor of Arthur, a 1957 graduate of the law school, whose distinguished career, as the Center states, was dedicated to serving “the needs of people and causes that might otherwise go unrepresented.” Through funding and support from the Liman Foundation to Beyond Barnard (the College’s one-stop shop for career development and exploration), the fellowship has flourished.

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“The program is particularly important today, at a time when positive public service is critical,” says Liman, whose family has deep ties to Barnard, with three generations of Liman women having attended the College, including her daughter-in-law Lisa Liman ‘83, P’22, and her granddaughters Amanda Liman Arnold ‘25 and Abigail Liman ‘22. “It has become highly selective and sought after, and it informs the lives of the students long after the experience.” 

Each year, four Barnard students become Liman Law Fellows; the program offers funding and support to students seeking work at an organization serving the public interest. The College is one of eight institutions nationwide offering the fellowships — and each fellow spends the summer gaining professional experience like Ingram’s — in organizations that provide law-related services for the public or conduct advocacy and policy work for underserved communities. 

Liman Law Fellows receive a $5,000 stipend and are eligible for subsidized on-campus housing and eight to 10 weeks of in-person summer work at a publicly funded or nonprofit public interest, social service, cultural, or government agency. Additionally, they attend the Liman Colloquium at Yale Law School in the spring, where they learn from voices like Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson and network with former Liman fellows, among others. Any student entering their second, third, or fourth year may apply, regardless of their major. 

“The Fellowship Program covers an area of high interest but also one that typically doesn’t have paid internships,” says Christine Valenza Shin ’84, executive director of Beyond Barnard. “The program allows us to fund more students in public interest law and advocacy work.”

Liman says that the fellowship ties directly to her family’s long legacy of philanthropy. “We’ve always been very interested in social causes,” she notes. 

A Game-Changing Opportunity

If Isadora Ruyter-Harcourt ’16 were to point to one of the most pivotal experiences of her career, it would be her time spent working with the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. As an intern there, Ruyter-Harcourt carried out impact litigation work that aimed to eliminate discriminatory practices that prevented residents from accessing basic utility services if they owed unrelated court debt to the city. “I interviewed these people and got to know them,” Ruyter-Harcourt says. “I still think about that work today.” 

The experience — made possible by the Liman Law Fellows Program — informed her career decisions, which eventually led to her current position as a trial attorney at New York County Defender Services. “I had just graduated from Barnard and didn’t have work lined up for the summer,” says Ruyter-Harcourt. “The Center doesn’t pay for internships, so the fellowship made it possible for me to get that experience before I went on to work as a paralegal at Federal Defenders of New York that fall.” 

Like Ruyter-Harcourt, Anusha Merchant ’25, a rising Barnard senior, is passionate about social justice  advocacy but was unsure she could afford a summer internship in the field without pay. The Liman fellowship allowed her to serve as a legal intern at the Government Accountability Project in 2023. In this position, Merchant worked to support whistleblowers, one related to scientific integrity and another related to immigration. “The program wasn’t just about the financial support,” Merchant says, “but also the ability to network and learn.”

A first-generation student, Merchant didn’t have many lawyers in her prior orbit, so she took full advantage of the Liman network. “I had a list of Liman fellows and reached out to a variety of them to build connections I otherwise wouldn’t have known existed,” she says. 

This summer, in fact, Merchant is putting those connections to good use. She’s working at the Brennan Center for Justice on the liberty and national security team. “My co-worker is a former Liman fellow from Yale,” she says. “The network remains a part of your life, and its reputation helps you build credibility.” 

That’s just what the program aims to do, says Valenza Shin: “The program puts a name to something the students are interested in but don’t know how to find otherwise. It allows them more than a vague hope and gives them concrete, valuable experience while they’re still in college.”

The Liman program has been so effective at Barnard that it has become a model for other programs as well. The Reinhart Richards Journalism Internships and the Zwas Community Impact Internships financially support students interested in journalism and community-focused organizations. “Liman became an example for us to put in front of alumnae and foundations with similar interests,” says Valenza Shin.

Having the Liman Law Fellows Program serve as a role model to other programs is exactly what Ellen Liman loves to see. “The impact extends well beyond the four Barnard fellows every year,” she says. “When you involve college students in public service, it multiplies the positive effect.”