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Fall 2016

Children and the Law

Impact

Youth Law Fellowship Honors Fiza Quraishi, ’07

For young lawyers with a passion for helping disadvantaged children, pursuing such a career is limited by scarce job opportunities. A new fellowship will offer a gateway by bringing Michigan Law students to the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL)—while honoring a woman who left an enormous legacy at both institutions.

As a student and lawyer, Fiza Quraishi, ’07, was a tireless advocate on behalf of disadvantaged children. After her death in February 2016, colleagues at NCYL and classmates at Michigan Law (from which her husband, Adil Haq, also graduated, in 2006) united to create the Fiza Quraishi Youth Law Fellowship.

Through the fellowship, each year a Michigan Law student will represent vulnerable youth at NCYL, one of the country’s preeminent public-interest law firms. As a permanently endowed fund, the Fiza Quraishi Youth Law Fellowship will forever honor Quraishi’s dedication and indelible spirit. Her story will inspire other students to pursue their dreams, and in so doing, at-risk youth will receive the advocacy and opportunities they need to thrive. “When Fiza died, the world was prematurely robbed of an amazing lawyer,” says Sarah Zearfoss, ’92, senior assistant dean for admissions, financial aid, and career planning, who admitted Quraishi as a 1L in 2004 and maintained a friendship with her after graduation. “The fellowship will memorialize a remarkable woman and help replace a little bit of what we all have lost.”

To support the fellowship, mail a check (payable to the University of Michigan and referencing the Fiza Quraishi Youth Law Fellowship) to: University of Michigan Law School, Office of Development and Alumni Relations, 701 South State Street, Fourth Floor, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-3091. You may give over the phone by contacting Michael Dubin, assistant dean for development and alumni relations, at 734.615.4510.

More From This Issue

Fall 2016 Cover Story

Tension: Privacy vs. National Security in the Digital Age

Cindy Cohn, ’89, was in her office at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), interviewing a job candidate, when a staff member knocked on her door. Cohn initially said she couldn’t step away from the interview, but her colleague persisted. It was June 5, 2013—the day that would change everything.

Fall 2016 Features

Intelligence Legalism and the NSA’s Civil Liberties Gap

Margo Schlanger, the Henry M. Butzel Professor of Law, is a leading authority on civil rights issues and civil and criminal detention and is the founder and director of the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse at the Law School. In this article, she discusses the balancing act between NSA information gathering and civil liberties in the wake of recent security breaches.

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A man who would be immortalized by Tom Hanks many years later was the speaker at the first Senior Day of the University of Michigan Law School. That was 50 years ago, on May 12, 1966. I know. I was there.

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