The Peggy Browning Fund awarded public interest labor law fellowships to four Drexel Law students, supporting their public interest work this summer.

1Ls Emily Derstine Friesen and Ryan McCarthy and 2Ls Kathleen Bichner and Michael Gersie are among just 70 students chosen nationwide from hundreds of applicants this year.

Derstine Friesen will spend the summer working with Friends of Farmworkers. Before enrolling at the law school, she worked on behalf of immigrants as a paralegal and as a legal assistant at Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights in Washington, D.C. through the AmeriCorps program.

McCarthy will work this summer at Sheet Metal Workers Local Union No. 19 in Philadelphia. Before arriving at Drexel Law, McCarthy completed internships with the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Education and with the city’s Workforce Investment Board.

Bichner will devote her summer to working at the Bricklayers & Allied Craftworkers Local 1 Pa/Del. Her experience writing a Note about fair treatment of at-will employees for the Drexel Law Review spurred a keen interest in practicing labor law as a union-side attorney.

Gersie will work this summer at Pond Lehocky Stern Giordano, a law firm that specializes in representing plaintiffs in workers’ compensation claims. His interest in labor law was sparked by spending his 2L summer completing an internship in the Labor Department of Philadelphia Gas Works.

The Peggy Browning Fund is a non-profit organization established in memory of Margaret A. Browning, a prominent union-side attorney who was a member of the National Labor Relations Board from 1994 until 1997.