Kaitlyn O’Leary, ’26, has been awarded a prestigious Peggy Browning Fund Fellowship, one of the nation’s leading programs for students pursuing careers in workplace justice advocacy.
O’Leary, a first-generation college and law student from Dumont, New Jersey, will spend the summer in Washington, DC, working with O'Donoghue & O'Donoghue, one of the oldest and largest union-side law firms in the United States. As a fellow, O’Leary will assist attorneys representing a broad coalition of unions, including building trades, electrical workers, ironworkers, EMTs, letter carriers, and communication workers—among them, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the very union that shaped her family’s story.
O’Leary’s commitment to labor advocacy is personal and deeply rooted. Her father, an electrician and longtime union steward of Local 3 IBEW, spent his career safeguarding the rights and safety of fellow workers—sometimes from precarious positions high above the Hudson River on the George Washington Bridge. His advocacy, O’Leary says, often came at a personal cost. “My father would tell me that being a steward put a target on his back,” O’Leary shared. “Management would try to intimidate him whenever he stood up for his coworkers. I want to use my law degree to protect workers like my dad from employers who prioritize profit and efficiency over safety and fairness.”
This summer, O’Leary will contribute to legal research, draft memoranda on collective...
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