Law Student Receives Equal Justice Works Fellowship

Tiffany Mercado, who is completing her final year at the School of Law, was recently awarded a fellowship through Equal Justice Works. EJW fellowships fund young attorneys throughout the country as they begin their careers in public interest law. Fellows work to improve access to the justice system for underrepresented populations. Mercado will partner with the N.M. Center on Law and Poverty, a nonprofit public interest law firm and advocacy group.

Her objective under the fellowship is to reform New Mexico’s Workers’ Compensation Act so that it no longer discriminates against migrant farm and ranch workers. Currently, the law excludes these groups from its basic safety net protections.

Mercado began working with the center last summer, when she was selected for the center’s Seth Montgomery Fellowship in Public Interest Law. While there, she facilitated implementation of a law protecting day laborers in New Mexico. The law had been passed in 2005, but had since been overlooked by the Department of Labor.

Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu