WNT Announces 2025 Employment Law Scholarship Winner
June 18, 2025
By Genevieve Carlton, Ph.D.
The Charles E. Joseph Employment Law Scholarship awards $1,000 to a law student who plans to become a plantiffs’ employment lawyer.
Working Now and Then awarded the seventh annual Charles E. Joseph Employment Law scholarship in May 2025. The $1,000 scholarship provides financial support to incoming or current law students considering careers in plaintiffs’ employment law. For the 2025/2026 academic year, the scholarship will go to Ramya Shricharanam Krishna.
“I am honored and grateful to have received the 2025 Charles E. Joseph Employment Law Scholarship,” says Krishna.
Krishna’s wide-ranging experience includes internships in a state attorney general’s office and a county juvenile court, as well as membership on a juvenile crime prevention council.
In the fall, Krishna will enroll at the North Carolina Central University School of Law. “I am looking forward to devoting my career to advocating for worker’s rights, particularly in fields and communities where doing so is especially challenging,” Krishna says, “as well as for the rights of marginalized individuals and litigants in other areas of law.”
The 2025 scholarship cycle saw a record-breaking number of applicants from an exceptional group of current and incoming law students. In order to choose the winner, the scholarship committee reviewed essays on the biggest challenge facing workers’ rights. Krishna’s essay critiques the ways forced arbitration has denied workers of their right to a trial by jury.
As Krishna notes in her winning essay, the Declaration of Independence listed depriving colonists of the “benefits of trial by jury” as one of the grievances against the crown. Her historical yet timely essay underscores the impact of major corporations on workers’ rights.
“I hope to represent workers employed by large, regionally dominant employers whose influence often shapes local labor practices and community power dynamics,” Krishna explains.
Krishna’s essay will be featured on the Working Now and Then blog.
“I hope that this inspires other incoming and current law students like myself to apply for scholarships and to take the plunge in submitting their work for these kinds of opportunities,” Krishna says, “as one never knows with whom their work and experiences will resonate!”
In 2025, the scholarship committee also recognized runner-up Skylar Wu, a rising 2L at Georgetown University Law Center. “I’m honored to be recognized by the committee,” Wu says.
Wu’s essay examined how the consolidation of employer power and its effective monopolization of labor markets impacts workers’ rights.
The scholarship, named for Working Now and Then founder Charles Joseph, supports future employment attorneys fighting for workers’ rights. It also recognizes exceptional law students with bright futures in the field.
The WNT Blog will publish essays from winner Ramya Shricharanam Krishna, runner-up Skylar Wu, and several honorable mentions. The series, titled Law Students on Workers’ Rights, will begin publication in late June 2025.
In addition to the law student scholarship, the Working Now and Then Undergraduate Scholarship will award a $1,000 scholarship to an undergraduate student considering a career in employment law in December 2025.
Working Now and Then is a resource on workers’ rights. Charles Joseph, the founder of Working Now and Then, also founded the New York employment law firm Joseph & Kirschenbaum.