Buchalter Announces Kaufman Appellate Fellowship Program

Buchalter is pleased to announce the establishment of the Kaufman Appellate Fellowship Program, named in honor of California Supreme Court Justice Marcus Kaufman, who founded the appellate practice at Buchalter upon his retirement from the bench thirty years ago. The Fellowship provides recent law school graduates with appellate advocacy experience early in their careers and is intended to serve as a launching pad into a judicial clerkship or an appellate career.

The U.S. Solicitor General’s Office and state solicitor generals such as California and Colorado have similar fellowship programs, as do a handful of appellate boutiques across the country. This is the first appellate fellowship at an AmLaw firm.

The first Kaufman Fellow is Lauren Jacobs, a Pepperdine Law School graduate and former extern for Presiding Justice Tricia Bigelow of California’s Second District Court of Appeal, Division Eight.

Jacobs joins another new appellate hire, Joshua Ostrer, a UCLA Law School graduate and former judicial law clerk to the Honorable Patrick DeAlmeida on the New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division (New Jersey’s intermediate appellate court) and the Honorable Karen E. Scott, U.S. Magistrate Judge in the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California. Ostrer joined the firm earlier this fall.

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About the Fellowship:
Kaufman Appellate Fellowship Program
The Kaufman Appellate Fellowship, named in honor of the founder of Buchalter’s appellate practice, former California Supreme Court Justice Marcus Kaufman, provides one or two year fellowships for recent law school graduates with a high level of academic success and an interest in appellate advocacy.

Fellows may come directly following graduation from law school or after completion of a judicial clerkship.

Fellows perform legal research, assist with the drafting of legal arguments, help prepare attorneys for oral argument before the California courts of appeal, California Supreme Court, and Ninth Circuit, work on articles and other projects, and perform cite-checking of briefs and motions.

The firm may extend an offer to a select number of Fellows to join the firm as associates once they have completed their tenure and secured commitments for post-Fellowship clerkships with a state or federal appellate judge.