Fellowship
Calling for Applications for BBS Fellowship Class of 2024
What It Is
A $2500 stipend and semester-long fellowship in Spring 2024 for first-generation professionals currently attending law school. We encourage students from communities that are underrepresented in the legal profession to apply.
In addition to the stipend, BBS fellows will receive:
Training by legal professionals from a wide variety of legal backgrounds and organizations in subjects including:
law firm economics at both the associate and partner level;
strategic & logistical considerations in starting your own firm;
in-house legal structures and career paths;
launching and managing nonprofit organizations; and
alternative careers.
Career coaching.
Career mentorship, mock interviews, and resume review on an ongoing basis.
An expenses-paid weekend in-person summit.
The BBS Fellowship class of 2024 will join our prior classes as part of our BBS Fellowship network, with members acting as a peer network for career development, mentorship of first-generation professionals between various law schools, additional training opportunities, and advocacy for diversity within the broader legal market.
This is entirely a training and mentorship opportunity for our fellows. BBS fellows will not be asked to perform any work for BBS or its clients.
Who Should Apply
We are seeking applicants who are the first in their families to graduate from college, as well as those from lower-income, working-class, or non-white-collar backgrounds. We encourage students from communities that are underrepresented in the legal profession to apply.
Applicants need not be planning to start their own law practice. We hope that exposure to the way legal organizations of all sizes operate will empower new lawyers and demystify the business end of our field. We also encourage public-interest oriented students, and those interested in managing or launching their own initiatives to apply.
Application Process
To apply, please complete the BBS 2024 Fellowship Application by December 11, 2023:
Interviews of finalists will be conducted by Zoom.
Please send any questions about the application, fellowship, or BBS generally to fellowship@bradleybernstein.com.
Who We Are
We founded Bradley Bernstein Sands LLP (“BBS”) in July 2020 after each practicing law for nearly 15 years at some of the biggest law firms and most forward-looking city governments in the country. We are a majority woman-owned firm that represents private and public clients in complex litigation on the West Coast. For over a decade before founding BBS, Heidi Bradley has been a leading litigator in Los Angeles and Seattle and is now recognized as one of the top antitrust and commercial litigators in Seattle. Erin Bernstein has been a national leader in the government affirmative litigation space. And Darin Sands is a first generation professional who has become a go-to commercial litigator in Portland.
The three of us are longtime friends and are also parents who understand the push and pull of family and professional life. As we have built our own law firm, we spent a lot of time distilling the important lessons we’ve learned in our prior positions—not just about the dollars and cents of how law firms run, but also about the value of leadership training, building professional networks, project management skills, and integrating a true balance between family life and career ambition into a larger office culture.
Why We’re Funding This
Each of our founders is a highly experienced and successful litigator in our own field. But when we set out to start a law firm, we realized that our legal education and career training had not adequately prepared us to understand the business of big law, government, and nonprofits, or alternative career paths available to lawyers in and outside of the law. We hope to help fill that gap for current law students and help demystify the opaque world of law firm economics—focusing especially on students who don’t have other professionals in their family networks.
As we built BBS, we wondered—given the grim statistics of female litigators in BigLaw’s partnership ranks—why there weren’t more women-owned firms like ours, and why there are so few law firms founded by people of color. Systemic inequality and racism certainly play a role in this disparity. So too does the lack of guidance for diverse lawyers on how to successfully navigate those realities and find a career path that provides autonomy and control over your future. We want to see more firms like ours out there, and we want to help train, mentor, and fund the next generation of leaders in the legal profession.
Former Fellows
Christiana Burnett
Christiana Burnett was a BBS Fellow while a first-year student at the University of Chicago Law School. Christiana grew up in Chicago, and was the first person in her family to graduate from college—she attended University of Massachusetts for her undergraduate degree and studied in Madrid, Spain to receive her master’s degree in Management. After a successful career in marketing and communications, Christiana decided to attend law school in her hometown, where she also has mentored both community college and high school students. Keeping in mind two phrases—”you can’t be what you can’t see,” and “you don’t know what you don’t know”—Christiana hopes that the BBS fellowship will allow her to “learn from women who are leaders in the field.”
Anna Judson
Anna Judson was a BBS Fellow while a first-year student at UC Berkeley Law School. Anna, a low-income, first-generation student who grew up in foster care, graduated from UC Berkeley with an undergraduate degree in Legal Studies. She spent her undergraduate years serving foster youth in her role with the Berkeley Hope Scholars (“BHS”), which supports UC Berkeley students who have been impacted by child-welfare, and shortly after the Covid-19 lockdown, created an outreach program which supported high school foster youth in applying to college. Anna is “eager to be a part of a fellowship community that offers me professional and personal support” and believes that the BBS Fellowship “will play a powerful role in allowing me to find community.”
Nicole Leon-Elvir
Nicole Leon-Elvir was a BBS Fellow while a first-year student at UC Berkeley Law School. Nicole, born in Chicago, advocated from an early age for her parents as they navigated the U.S. immigration system. As an undergraduate at Columbia University, she co-founded the Women of Color Pre-Law Society and sat on the First-Generation Advisory Board. After graduating from Columbia, Nicole used her personal experiences with the legal system to work as an immigration paralegal before attending law school. As a first-generation Latina professional hoping to begin her practice in the private sector and then potentially open her own immigration firm, Nicole is confident that the BBS fellowship “will prove invaluable as I begin my career and will improve my confidence as an advocate.”
Alphonse Simon
Alphonse Simon was a BBS Fellow while a second-year student at Yale Law School. Growing up in Oakland, Alphonse and his sister were raised by their single mother after his father was wrongfully incarcerated. Before graduating from UC Berkeley, Alphonse attended community college at the City College of San Francisco. Alphonse hopes to jump between public and private sector roles as a litigator, all while giving back to the community that raised him.
“This fellowship will afford me the business and client relation skills needed to be a successful law firm partner and the fundraising and management skills required to be a successful social entrepreneur.”
Azeezat Adeleke
Azeezat Adeleke wasa BBS Fellow while a third-year law student at Stanford Law School. She received an an undergraduate degree from Yale College
Before law school, she worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs. She served as an Editor on the Stanford Law Review. She has earned prizes as a top student in Administrative Law, Criminal Procedure: Investigation, and Legal Ethics, and worked in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. After graduation, Azeezat planned to serve in two clerkships, and then to pursue a career in media and First Amendment law.
“From attending Yale College to matriculating at Stanford Law School and securing two federal clerkships, I understand what it means to end up in unlikely places as a first-generation professional, a first-generation American, and a Black woman. I also understand what it takes to succeed in these spaces: knowledge—both the kind that we get in school and the kind that many of my classmates receive at the dinner table. I am excited to [participate in] the BBS Fellowship because it will empower me to act boldly on my ambitions as a litigator.”
Tolu Alegbeleye
Tolu Alegbeleye was a BBS Fellow while a first-year law student at Harvard Law School, with an undergraduate degree in economics from Georgetown University. Before law school, Tolu worked as a consultant in a product liability consulting firm. She now serves on the Harvard African Law Association board, the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Journal, and the Harvard Law and Policy Journal.
“As a first-generation college and now law student, I have repeatedly encountered and tried to overcome the impacts that my lack of connections and awareness regarding unspoken rules of engagement could have on my academic and professional career. In some matters I have succeeded, while in others I have failed and learned from my mistakes. Throughout the ups and downs of my journey to law school, I am forever grateful for the friends and mentors I connected with that poured into me over the years. Yet, I am still painfully aware of the lack of transparency others coming after me still encounter and aim to demystify these processes … I am moved by BBS’s mission statement, and I hope to serve as an example of what can be achieved through commitment and diligence, regardless of where you started.”
Jacob Gonzalez
Jacob Gonzalez was a BBS Fellow while a first-year student at Yale Law School. He earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. Before law school, Jacob returned to teach at the remedial high school he had attended, and then after seminary he worked throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as a chaplain to the sick and dying at Bellevue, New York City’s “public hospital of last resort” for the undocumented, psychiatrically ill, and men incarcerated at Rikers Island. In law school, Jacob serves as an editor on the Yale Law & Policy Review and Yale Journal on Regulation. He also is deeply involved in Yale Law School’s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, where he works on teams representing immigrants and low-wage workers engaged in federal litigation and state-level legislative advocacy.
“My years in the classroom and at the bedside have filled me with a fierce urgency to challenge the laws responsible for my students’ illiteracy and incarceration—and my patients’ preventable illness and death. I know that I’m called to a vocation in anti-poverty litigation. . . I’m profoundly committed to using my YLS education in the most socially useful and racially just way I can, but I don't yet know how. That’s why I’m [interested in the Fellowship’s] mentorship and business-side training.”
Rhemé Sloan
Rhemé Sloan was a BBS Fellow while a second-year student at University of Chicago. Growing up in New Orleans, Rhemé and their family lost a home in the Ninth Ward in Hurricane Katrina, but thanks to their family’s value for education, Rhemé went on to earn a degree in music from the University of Michigan. After college, Rhemé had a career in fundraising for the Seattle and Houston Symphonies and for Rice University. Rhemé now hopes to spend their career helping corporate clients while also championing the rights and professional ambitions of people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“Based on what I’ve learned about resilience, discipline, and teamwork from [my life] experiences, I am ready to expand the outlook of my legal career. As a first generation professional, I deeply value others’ investment in my career development. I am eager to be a part of [this] cohort of BBS fellows and I look forward to paying this investment forward.”
Janessa Doyle
Janessa Doyle attended the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University. Her undergraduate degree is also from ASU. Janessa worked her way through college as a claims representative for an insurance company, while also serving as a writing mentor to students at the School of Social Transformation at ASU. Her interest in the law was sparked when she watched people from her own community and their own encounters with the legal system. While in law school, Janessa has served as an extern at the Arizona Supreme Court, and at the Maricopa County Office of the Public Defender. Janessa has been recognized for her accomplishments with numerous scholarships during her undergraduate and law school tenure.
“As a Black woman, I believe that I will be leading the way for many people in my community as I continue on the path of practicing law. . . . I hope to get involved in as many ways as possible to help others from my community onto the path of joining the legal world. [As a BBS Fellow,] I plan to take full advantage of the training and networking opportunities that I will receive. I am also interested in one day being a mentor to future BBS Fellows. I truly admire [BBS’s] devotion to assist first generation students that are underrepresented in the legal field.”
Saraphin Dhanani
Saraphin Dhanani was a BBS Fellow while a second year law student at Stanford Law School, and received an undergraduate degree from Wellesley College. She serves as the Senior Articles Editor on the Stanford Law Review. Before law school, Saraphin worked in the Markets Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and in her free time, founded an organization to expand career and educational resources for refugees across the globe by virtually connecting them with volunteers offering university prep mentorship, guidance on securing employment, and English language tutoring. She is also the recipient of the Madeleine Korbel Albright Fellowship, and serves as the Alumna Representative on the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute Ambassadors Council.
“My [participation in] the BBS Fellowship is a manifestation of my desire to pay it forward to those who are trying so desperately to overcome their misfortunes. . . . I hope this Fellowship will help me scale my impact, and also equip me with the skills to [combine my interests in national security, finance, and domestic public diplomacy] to represent my community in the halls of [power]. The path to realizing this change will require directed mentorship and a network of like-minded peers working towards similar pursuits. I am deeply grateful for the Fellowship’s support along this journey.”
Fernando Rojas
Fernando Rojas was a BBS Fellow while a first year law student at Yale Law School. As an undergraduate at Yale, he worked translating documents at the Yale Law School Legal Services Organization. He went on to participate in a Kerry Initiative Fellowship, and has received numerous awards recognizing his scholarship and contributions to the community. Throughout his undergraduate and graduate studies, Fernando has worked to create mentorship opportunities for students who identify as first generation and low income students. Fernando is excited about the BBS Fellowship because,
“[w]hile the majority of my classmates are familiar with the logics of this profession, I am simultaneously attempting to recognize the things I do not know and affirmatively build the skills I need to succeed. The BBS Fellowship will demystify the world I am about to enter so I can meet the obligations I owe to the community that nurtured me.”