Rising 3L Matthew Tokarsky has been awarded a prestigious fellowship from the Peggy Browning Fund to spend the summer working in Washington with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Tokarsky is among fewer than 70 law students in the U.S. chosen from more than 500 applicants this year.

A native of Columbus, Ohio who worked as a community organizer with the Public Interest Group, Tokarsky has a keen interest in workers’ rights.  He is completing a co-op placement at Cleary, Josem & Trigiani, LLP, a union-side labor law firm in Philadelphia, and he has provided pro bono service with Philadelphia Legal Assistance’s Unemployment Compensation Division.

“We need people to stand up and fight for workers, because workers' rights are human rights,” he said.

The Peggy Browning Fund fellowships, named for a prominent labor attorney and former member of the National Labor Relations Board, were established in 1998 to give law students unique, diverse and challenging work experiences fighting for social and economic justice.