Legal Policy Fellowship

About FreeFrom’s Fellowship Program

FreeFrom is looking for a deeply committed, motivated, and policy-minded Fellow to work with us this Fall 2025.

FreeFrom’s project-based Fellowship program will provide a Fellow with the opportunity to develop extensive knowledge of the policies impacting survivors’ long-term financial security. The project will enable a Fellow to gain fluency in multiple critical issues while contributing great value to an important advocacy resource. Our Fellowship program will contribute to the professional and personal development of the Fellow into a leader and engineer of policy supporting survivors.

As a Fellow with us, you will work alongside a FreeFrom team member who will provide you with the necessary support and guidance. By the end of the program, you will walk away with real-life work experience to support your long-term professional goals.

About FreeFrom

FreeFrom is a national organization founded in 2016 and based in Los Angeles working to end gender-based violence with survivors by building safety and economic freedom. We do this through bold survivor-led strategies that build our collective power and activate everyone in society to play their part—before, during, and beyond moments of crisis. Starting from our conviction that gender-based violence is an economic issue, our work takes four main areas of focus:

• Support Survivors - We innovate with survivors to create tools, resources, and environments that offer support before, during, and beyond moments of crisis. Survivors can then build financial security to support their individual, intergenerational, and community healing.
• Shift the Narrative - We celebrate survivors’ stories of joy, resilience, and strength to instill hope and counter the narrative that this is an unsolvable problem. Through our storytelling and research, we reframe gender-based violence and spur action toward solutions.
• Drive Systemic Change - We mobilize powerful institutions—including banks, employers, and every level of government. We equip them with a roadmap for what they can do to support survivors and enact widespread change.
• Resource and Expand the Movement - We build survivors’ collective power, bringing more funding to the movement to end gender-based violence and creating sustainability for this work so that we can see through a 100-year strategy and create a world without gender-based violence (GBV).

Visit our website to learn more about FreeFrom – www.freefrom.org

FreeFrom’s Work Culture

The FreeFrom team is made up of queer, trans, im/migrant, and BIPOC survivors. We envision a world in which all survivors are able to build the wealth and financial security necessary to support their individual, intergenerational, and community healing—enabling them to thrive.

At FreeFrom, we are already modeling the types of comprehensive support we are setting out to achieve through this work. We are committed to the financial security of survivors by paying all staff living-wage salaries, providing flexible work schedules, offering a building wealth stipend, unlimited menstrual leave and other benefits, designing survivor-informed practices, and actively engaging staff in the development of new policies and best practices. Starting from within, we are building an ecosystem of support rooted in respect for the wisdom of survivors who always know best what we need and how to innovate solutions to meet those needs.

FreeFrom is also a team of nimble innovators. We intentionally cultivate a spirit of creativity and experimentation in our work, understanding that we must be willing to try new approaches and apply new frameworks in order to solve a systemic problem like gender-based violence.

About the Fellowship Project

FreeFrom created the Map and Scorecard to track and assess how well states support survivors’ financial security as measured by multiple policy categories. The Map and Scorecard offers both a national overview as well as an in-depth analysis of each state. The Map and Scorecard rates each state based on its aggregate score on specific policy categories. The individual state pages break-down state law by policy category and track specific policy criterias. Each category includes citations to the controlling legal authority, such as state codes, state legislation, or, in some cases, administrative manuals. In addition, the Map and Scorecard includes other links to helpful resources. As such, the Map and Scorecard is an educational resource for the general public as well as a tool for advocates. The fall Legal Policy Fellow will be responsible for reviewing and updating the state pages.

This project will sharpen legal research skills and deepen knowledge of policies impacting survivors’ financial security nationwide. By the end of this fellowship, the Fellow will have a commanding understanding of multiple policy issues (such as coerced and fraudulent debt; paid and protective leave; rental protections; litigation abuse protections; and access to policy-making, among others) and the current status on such issues across states. In addition, the Fellow will have insight into emerging national trends as well as historical and regional differences.

Responsibilities

The Fellow will be responsible for updating all 50 state pages plus D.C. to ensure they are accurate and reflect current state law. This will include:

• Gaining a working understanding of the numerous policy categories tracked on the Map and Scorecard.
• Conducting comprehensive legal research to ensure current state law is reflected on specific policy criteria.
• Updating scores and state ratings based on changes to policy criteria in each category.
• Meticulous review of legal sources and other resources linked to on each state page.
• Tracking changes to state pages needed so the website can be accurately updated.
• Assessing and noting additional policy criteria the Map and Scorecard should track.

If time and capacity permit, the Fellow may also input the updates into the content management system for the Map and Scorecard.

Qualifications / Requirements

The Fellow must be able to:

• Read, interpret, and synthesize state codes, statutes, legislation, and administrative regulations;
• Conduct legal research to identify all controlling authorities on policy issues, including evaluating legal sources for primacy;
• Accurately track updates based on findings from legal research;
• Meticulously review copy for each state page;
• Self-drive and work independently towards project completion; and
• Communicate progress and support needed on assigned tasks.

The Fellow must have:

• A commitment to FreeFrom’s mission to end gender-based violence by building economic freedom and safety with survivors;
• An interest in policy work, including policy-making and evaluating policy;
• Experience working to advance social justice;
• Proficient legal research skills;
• Excellent organizational skills, with high accuracy and attention to detail; and
• Enthusiasm about the purpose of the Map and Scorecard.