Jill Friedman is responsible for the Pro Bono and Public Interest
Program. With others, she designed and implemented the Maida Public
Interest Fellows Program, which awards one full-time, postgraduate
fellowship and 40 summer public interest stipends each year. In
addition, Friedman inaugurated the Social Justice Scholars Program to
recognize and nurture students with exceptional dedication to public
interest work and to promote public interest career development.
Rutgers Law School's Camden campus offers approximately 15 in-house pro bono projects
and additional opportunities in partnership with legal services
providers. Projects include 501(c)(3), Hon. Judith H. Wizmur
Bankruptcy, Domestic Violence, Legal Research, VITA, wills/powers of
attorney and others. The Newark campus supports a range of public
interest and social justice programming and provides career counseling
and guidance to public interest-minded students. Public Interest Fellows
selected by competitive application in Newark work with pro bono and
public interest staff to organize Fellows' Forums on public sector
topics, often in partnership with student groups. In addition, the program supports several pro bono initiatives, including the Hon. Morris
Stern Bankruptcy Pro Bono Project, the New Jersey LGBTQ Pro Bono Legal
Assistance Project, the Street Law Project, and others. In 2015, associate dean Friedman
was honored with a seed grant from Rutgers University-Newark chancellor Nancy Cantor, in support of the Newark Educational Access and
Advocacy Project.
Friedman directs Camden's chapter of the Marshall-Brennan
Constitutional Literacy Project, a law school course and community
civics education project designed to increase public literacy about the
Bill of Rights. With support from AT&T, Dean Friedman supervises the
law schools' Street Law Pro Bono Projects, which train, support, and
supervise law students who provide practical law-related education to
hundreds of disadvantaged young people each semester in schools,
detention centers, shelters, and elsewhere in Camden and Newark.
Dean
Friedman inaugurated a Summer Law Institute, a Camden moot court program
and--in partnership with student groups-- a Camden-wide Constitution
Day Project, all opportunities for law students to use their legal
training to empower disadvantaged young people. In 2012, with Dean
Angela V. Baker, Friedman was selected to codirect the LSAC
Discoverlaw.org Prelaw Undergraduate Scholars (PLUS) Program at Rutgers School
of Law-Camden, then one of five such programs in the United States. PLUS
has the mission of increasing the diversity of the legal profession and
improving the qualifications of students from underrepresented racial
and ethnic groups who may want to become lawyers. It provides a
monthlong residential immersion in the law for exceptional future
lawyers.
Dean Friedman became secretary of the Section on Pro-Bono and
Public Service Opportunities of the American Association of Law Schools
in 2017. She serves on the New Jersey State Bar Association's Pro Bono
Committee and in 2014 was appointed to the New Jersey State Bar
Association's Blue Ribbon Commission on Unmet Legal Needs. In 2015, Rutgers University-Camden chancellor Phoebe Haddon appointed Friedman to the search committee for a
Camden-based co-dean for Rutgers Law School, and to the inaugural
Rutgers University-Camden Experiential Learning Advisory Council. From
2010 to 2012, she served on the National Advisory Committee of Equal
Justice Works, which has the mission of mobilizing the next generation
of lawyers committed to advocating for underrepresented people and
causes. She served on the board of directors of New Jersey Volunteer
Lawyers for the Arts and as a trustee of Camden's LEAP Academy
University Charter School. In June 2013, Friedman was invited to become
an affiliated scholar of Camden's Community Leadership Center, and she
serves on the advisory board for Pennsylvania Lawyers for Youth.
Admitted to practice law in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, she
received a Faculty Appreciation Award from the Women's Law Caucus in
April 2009, a Campus Partner Award from Rutgers Future Scholars in
June 2013, and a Chancellor's Award for Academic Civic Engagement in
2016.
Prior to joining Rutgers, Dean Friedman served from 1987 until 1993
as a staff attorney and senior staff attorney in the Criminal Defense
Division of the Legal Aid Society in New York City. She has served as a
consultant to Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania and to Public
Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY). At Good Shepherd Mediation
Program in Germantown, PA, Dean Friedman cofounded the Family Passages
Initiative, a divorce and child custody mediation project serving low-
and middle-income families. From 2005 until 2007, she held a senior
position at Philadelphia Futures, a nonprofit organization with the
mission of increasing educational accomplishment for low-income public
school students. She also worked as a community mediator and was a
member of the founding board of directors of the Delaware Valley chapter
of the Association for Conflict Resolution.
Dean Friedman earned her J.D. from New York University (1987) and her B.A. from Yale University (1984).
