Alison E. Hirschel, a 1984 graduate of the Law School, has been selected as the first Arthur Liman Public Interest Fellow. The announcement was made by Judith Resnik, the Arthur Liman Professor of Law.
Established in 1996, the Liman Fellowship honors the memory of Arthur Liman, a 1957 graduate of the Law School, who was a partner in the New York City firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. At least one fellowship will be awarded annually to a graduate who plans to work full-time for a year on an ongoing or start-up public interest law project. Liman Fellows will also spend a few days in residence on campus in order to conduct seminars based on their work.
Ms. Hirschel, who holds the fellowship for the 1997-98 academic year, has spent her professional career in legal services and in legal advocacy for the elderly. She was formerly director of planning and codirector of the Elderly Law Project of Community Legal Services, Inc., in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
As a Liman Fellow, she will work in Michigan to establish the Arthur Liman Project on Advocacy for the Institutionalized Elderly. She will combine individual representation, legislative and administrative advocacy and impact litigation focusing on the legal needs of Michigan's elderly population, especially those requiring long-term care.
"The Liman Fellowship is a gift," says Ms. Hirschel. "It allows me to continue work about which I feel passionately for individuals in long-term care facilities. These people are especially vulnerable now, at a time of enormous changes in both the health-care and welfare systems. There is a real void for this kind of legal advocacy in Michigan, and I hope to begin a pattern of advocacy that will continue into the future."
Professor Resnik notes: "We are delighted that Alison Hirschel has been selected as the first Arthur Liman Public Interest Fellow. She is an experienced legal services attorney with a decade-plus commitment to serving those in need. Over the coming years, the Liman Fellows will continue to honor the memory of Arthur Liman's life, which exemplified the possibility of the use of law to protect vulnerable individuals in need of the law's assistance."
Mr. Liman, who died on July 17, had a distinguished and varied career as a public servant. Among his other commitments, he was chief counsel to the New York Special Commission on Attica after the 1971 riots; president of the Legal Aid Society of New York and of the Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem; chair of both the Legal Action Center in New York City and the New York State Capital Defender's Office; and special counsel to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition (also known as the Iran-Contra Committee).