The Gibbons Fellowship, originally conceived in 1990 as just a five-year commitment, is now, remarkably, in its 35th year. Throughout its venerable history, it has litigated the most significant legal issues of our time – from the death penalty to same-sex marriage; from the rights of detained enemy combatants at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere (including the right of the public to know about their treatment) to equal educational opportunity; from the law of domestic violence to the rights of pregnant women, juvenile defendants, persons with AIDS, and prison inmates, among many others.
Over the past year alone, the Gibbons Fellowship has won a number of significant victories in federal and state cases, headlined by its successful defense of the New Jersey Bar Association’s affirmative action program and its successful defense of an Alabama death row inmate whose capital sentence was vacated as unconstitutional. Meanwhile, we continue to litigate cutting-edge matters implicating constitutional and individual rights and freedoms. We are back in court, now on appeal, after an unsuccessful mediation in our case challenging segregation in New Jersey’s public schools, in which the trial court has already found “marked and persistent racial imbalance in numerous school districts across the State that [New Jersey’s] actions, policies, programs, and inaction have failed to remedy.” We have continued to advocate for the provision of rehabilitative services to those who have been civilly committed; for the rights of federal inmates to proper treatment for COVID-19; for the rights of an American unjustly detained in Russia; and working with the Seton Hall Center for Social Justice, for tenants who were displaced, without constitutionally adequate notice, from their housing by a municipality based on the failure of the landlord to meet standards of habitability. We are defending the constitutionality of a new, progressive fair housing statute in New Jersey, advocating for the state’s right to take over a problematic municipal police department, and arguing in favor of the payment of a minimum wage to New Jersey farmworkers in an equal protection challenge to state labor laws. And, further to our longtime commitment to LGBTQ+ rights, we reached a favorable settlement of a case challenging the treatment of an incarcerated gay man. Meanwhile, we continue to weigh in on important issues of criminal procedure, including limits on the use of junk science to obtain criminal convictions.
The great and hardworking Gibbons Fellows, supervised by Lawrence S. Lustberg, longtime Director of the Gibbons Fellowship Program, undertake public interest and constitutional law projects and litigation. Requests for representation or advice are considered from all sectors, public and private, including public interest organizations, legal services or public defender offices, government agencies, private nonprofit corporations, courts, and individuals. Working with a broad cross-section of public interest groups, the Fellowship has become widely known in New Jersey and nationally as a powerful and effective voice for the poor and underrepresented.
Areas of Focus
Fellowship Application
Gibbons P.C. annually sponsors the nationally recognized John J. Gibbons Fellowship in Public Interest & Constitutional Law, and the firm is doing so again for the 2025-2027 time period. Applications are hereby solicited and will be accepted at any time through April 30, 2025. In order to continue our great tradition, the 2025-2027 Gibbons Fellow should be a person of high academic achievement and professional accomplishment. Preferably, the person selected should have served a judicial clerkship or been actively working in the field of public interest law; only in extraordinary cases will persons who are currently third-year law students be considered for the Fellowship. The Gibbons Fellow must have demonstrated a real commitment to public interest work and must make a commitment to remain as Fellow for the two-year period beginning in fall 2025. The deadline for applications is April 30, 2025, but applications will be considered as they are received, and it is possible that a Fellow will be selected before the deadline closes. At the very latest, we anticipate having hired our 2025-2027 Fellow by the middle of May.
Fellowship candidates must complete the attached application, along with the following:
- Law School Transcript (can be unofficial)
- Two (2) Letters of Recommendation
- Resume
- Writing Sample
Please send applications and materials via email to:
GIBBONS FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
Gibbons P.C.
One Gateway Center
Newark, New Jersey 07102-5310
Attention: Lawrence S. Lustberg, Director, John J. Gibbons Fellowship in Public Interest & Constitutional Law
LLustberg@gibbonslaw.com (cc: Carol Holmes, cholmes@gibbonslaw.com)
Click here to view the application for a Gibbons Fellow position for 2025-2027.
Past and Present Fellows
Program Director
Lawrence S. Lustberg
Fellows
Madhulika Murali (2024-2026)
Ruth O’Herron (2023-2025)
Julia T. Bradley (2022-2024)
Ethan J. Kisch (2021-2023)
Brittany M. Thomas (2020-2022)
Michael R. Noveck (2019-2021)
Jessica L. Hunter (2018-2020)
Farbod K. Faraji (2017-2019)
J. David Pollock (2016-2018)
Avram D. Frey (2015-2017)
Ana Isabel Muñoz (2014-2016)
Joseph A. Pace (2013-2015)
Portia D. Pedro (2012-2014)
Benjamin Yaster (2012-2014)
Jonathan M. Manes (2011-2013)
Alicia L. Bannon (2010-2012)
Eileen M. Connor (2009-2011)
Jennifer B. Condon (2008-2010)
Avidan Y. Cover (2007-2009)
Melanca D. Clark (2006-2008)
Emily B. Goldberg (2005-2007)
Megan Lewis (2004-2006)
Gitanjali S. Gutierrez (2003-2005)
Jonathan L. Hafetz (2003-2005)
Jennifer Ching (2002-2004)
Shavar D. Jeffries (2001-2003)
Philip G. Gallagher (2001-2003)
Risa E. Kaufman (2000-2002)
Jessica A. Roth (1999-2001)
Lori Outz Borgen (1998-2000)
David Thronson (1997-1999)
Laura Klein Abel (1996-1998)
James E. Ryan (1995-1997)
Lenora M. Lapidus (1994-1996)
Jonathan Romberg (1993-1995)
Elizabeth B. Cooper (1992-1994)
John V. Jacobi (1991-1993)
Lawrence S. Lustberg (1990-1992)