Chicago-Kent Student Awarded Peggy Browning Fellowship

A Chicago-Kent College of Law student was one of a select few to receive a prestigious national fellowship to conduct legal work for a national labor union this summer.

Grace Quigley ’24 was awarded a 2022 Peggy Browning Fund Fellowship, an award designed to educate and inspire students considering a career in labor law.

“I see [traditional labor law] as a social justice issue, and I came to Chicago-Kent for its labor and employment program. It really punches above its weight in labor and employment law, and I’ve already received benefits from that; people recognize it,” Quigley says. “The alumni community here has been really incredible. It’s made law school a lot more collegial than I had expected.”

Quigley is working for the Washington, D.C., office of United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. There, she represents workers from across the US and Canada, advising their local unions on legal strategies and conducting legal research on a variety of workplace issues.

“What I like most about it are the more abstract issues…questions of policy that are still in motion,” Quigley says.

Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, Quigley received her bachelor’s degree in history and economics from the University of Chicago. She has interned at the National Labor Relations Board in Chicago and D.C. and was an economic analyst at a litigation consulting firm before coming to law school.

The Peggy Browning Fellowship supports first- and second-year law students who dedicate their summer or semester to working for labor unions, worker centers, not-for-profit organizations, and union-side law firms. It was created by the Peggy Browning Fund, a nonprofit organization established in memory of Margaret A. Browning, a prominent labor attorney and former member of the National Labor Relations Board.

This is not the first time a Chicago-Kent student has been singled out for a prestigious labor law fellowship this year. In January Enrique Espinoza was awarded the AFL-CIO Fellowship, making it the third time in four years that the singular fellowship was awarded to a Chicago-Kent student or graduate.

The college’s Martin H. Malin Institute for Law and the Workplace is nationally recognized as an epicenter for research, training, dialogue, and reflection on the law that governs the workplace.