We are excited to announce that Iesha-LaShay Phillips (Yale Law School) and David Alan Johnson (Penn Carey Law) have been selected as SHJ’s 2023 diversity fellows. The two-week summer program includes robust educational programming as well as substantive client work. Because we view this fellowship as the first phase in a long-term relationship, we typically invite fellows to return as summer associates and/or first-year associates on successful completion of the program.

At Yale Law, Iesha serves as the lead founding editor of the Yale Journal of Law & Liberation and the lead editor of the Yale Law and Policy Review. She also volunteers with the Yale Civil Rights Project, helping the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls advocate for the compassionate release of incarcerated women vulnerable to COVID. Previously, Iesha was a summer associate at Jones Day through the SEO Law Fellowship, a national program that places high-performing, underrepresented law students at top firms before the beginning of their first year. She graduated from Oberlin College with a B.A. in Law & Society and Africana Studies.

David is a recipient of Penn Law’s Dr. Sadie T.M. Alexander Scholarship, an honor given to just five incoming students every year. Previously, he earned a master’s degree in public policy at the University of Chicago, where he received certificates in Global Conflict and International Development, and served as a research assistant for the Transitional Justice & Democratic Stability Lab. He was also a summer associate at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C. through the SEO Law Fellowship, a national program that places high-performing, underrepresented law students at top firms before the beginning of their first year. After graduating from Sewanee: The University of the South with a B.A. in Politics, David was one of 41 students nationwide to receive the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, which funds one year of pur­pose­ful, inde­pen­dent explo­ration out­side the Unit­ed States. David created an original project focusing on transitional justice for past human rights abuses in Northern Ireland, Germany, Rwanda, and South Africa. He is a native of Brownsville, Tennessee.