Jessica Schidlow, 38
JD ’17
SENIOR POLICY ANALYST AND LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL FOR THE CHILDREN’S JUSTICE CAMPAIGN, ENOUGH ABUSE
Jessica Schidlow, 38
JD ’17
SENIOR POLICY ANALYST AND LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL FOR THE CHILDREN’S JUSTICE CAMPAIGN, ENOUGH ABUSE
Jessica Schidlow helped draft a federal law eliminating time limits for child sex abuse survivors to sue, removing a barrier that had long denied them justice.
Before enrolling in the Thomas R. Kline School of Law, Jessica Schidlow worked as a child and family therapist, often serving clients who experienced sexual abuse. Eventually, she realized that it would be difficult to help her clients without more just systems that could help them heal — or prevent their trauma in the first place. Law school offered her the opportunity to help rebuild those systems as a child advocate. As a senior policy analyst and legislative counsel at Enough Abuse, which has spent six decades protecting the rights and improving the lives of vulnerable children, she’s now doing exactly that. Over the course of several years at CHILD USA, an advocacy organization where she was legal director until earlier this year, Schidlow promoted critical legislation that will affect the lives of untold Americans. She helped to conceptualize and draft The Eliminating Time Limits to Justice for Child Sex Abuse Victims Act of 2022, which erased the civil statute of limitations that had prevented many victims from obtaining redress for their abuse. She’s also worked on numerous state laws to open civil revival windows for victims to sue their assailants and enabling institutions. And now she’s hoping to secure passage of a bankruptcy reform bill that would prevent institutions from using Chapter 11 proceedings to escape accountability and silence victims.
“We speak the language of power. With that, we have the responsibility to uplift the voices of those who don’t have that access.”
More than anything else, Schidlow says her time at Drexel bridged two worlds — connecting what she'd learned working directly with abused children and families to the legal and policy tools needed to protect them on a larger scale.
My Greatest Accomplishment:
One of my greatest accomplishments is co-authoring the Child Sex Abuse Statutes of Limitation Treatise (2002–2025), the first comprehensive national reference on civil and criminal statute of limitations reform for child sexual abuse. It gives attorneys and lawmakers a single authoritative source to understand the patchwork of statute of limitations laws across the country, which has been central to the broader movement to reform those laws and expand access to justice for survivors.
How Drexel Shaped My Path:
Our professional privilege — our ability to navigate legal systems, speak the language of power and command credibility in legislative spaces — comes with a profound responsibility to those who are systematically denied that access. Effective advocacy requires moving beyond 'how can I win this case?' to ask 'how can I dismantle the systems that created this injustice in the first place?' That philosophy drives my legislative work. Rather than litigating individual cases of childhood sexual abuse, I use my legal training to reform the laws and rewrite the legal frameworks that prevent abuse before it begins.
Where I Hope To Be in Five Years:
I see myself working within a field of child protection advocacy that is stronger and more durable than when I entered it — one sustained by shared infrastructure, trusted relationships and collective expertise that enable collaborative, lasting progress. I see myself continuing to be someone colleagues turn to for thoughtful feedback and strategic perspective, while also having helped build systems and coalitions that are not dependent on any single individual. For me, success looks like contributing to reforms that are durable and scalable — changes that take hold across jurisdictions, respond to emerging challenges and help shift the field from reactive crisis response toward prevention. DM
My Greatest Accomplishment:
One of my proudest accomplishments was helping conceptualize and draft the Eliminating Time Limits to Justice, which in 2022 eliminated federal time constraints for survivors to file civil claims against their abusers. Previously, survivors could only file claims until age 28 — a deadline that ignored the well-documented reality of delayed disclosure. I also drafted the Closing Bankruptcy Loopholes for Child Predators Act, introduced in Congress in 2024, which amends the Bankruptcy Code to prevent institutions from using Chapter 11 proceedings to shield assets and evade liability for sexual abuse.
How Drexel Shaped My Path:
Our professional privilege — our ability to navigate legal systems, speak the language of power and command credibility in legislative spaces —comes with a profound responsibility to those who are systematically denied that access. Effective advocacy requires moving beyond 'how can I win this case?' to ask 'how can I dismantle the systems that created this injustice in the first place?' That philosophy drives my legislative work. Rather than litigating individual cases of childhood sexual abuse, I use my legal training to reform the laws and rewrite the legal frameworks that prevent abuse before it begins.
Where I Hope To Be in Five Years:
I see myself working within a field of child protection advocacy that is stronger and more durable than when I entered it — one sustained by shared infrastructure, trusted relationships and collective expertise that enable collaborative, lasting progress. I see myself continuing to be someone colleagues turn to for thoughtful feedback and strategic perspective, while also having helped build systems and coalitions that are not dependent on any single individual. For me, success looks like contributing to reforms that are durable and scalable — changes that take hold across jurisdictions, respond to emerging challenges and help shift the field from reactive crisis response toward prevention-focused solutions. DM
Built with Shorthand
