When Anna Strasburger ’25 was a law student at LMU Loyola Law School (LLS), she dreamed of practicing criminal law. To gain hands-on experience, she joined the Juvenile Innocence and Fair Sentencing (JIFS) clinic, which, in turn, led her to the California Racial Justice Act (RJA), a law aimed at addressing racial bias in legal proceedings. Strasburger realized it could be a powerful tool in winning justice for JIFS clients, so she proposed the creation of a project dedicated to the RJA, —a vision JIFS clinic director, Professor Chris Hawthorne ’00, supported.
“The Racial Justice Act is the most consequential criminal justice reform law of the last 25 years, but its implementation at first was weak and hesitant,” Hawthorne said. “At these crucial moments, one dedicated law student can make an enormous difference.”
Awarded a two-year fellowship by Equal Justice Works sponsored by Greenberg Traurig, Strasburger has become a leading expert in leveraging the RJA and a relentless advocate in sharing her knowledge with current and future LLS students.
“Anna has spearheaded reform in Los Angeles courts for the past year,” Hawthorne said. “Only a year out of law school, she is now a recognized authority in this area.”
Since beginning her fellowship in 2025, Strasburger has filed 11 motions to obtain evidence of racial disparity. Of the three motions that have been reviewed by judges to date, Strasburger has had a 100% success rate in moving forward to the next step: obtaining evidence. Her goal is to use this evidence to support over 25 RJA resentencing petitions, reducing the harsh adult sentences her clients received as juvenile offenders.
“The national standard requires proving intentional discrimination,” Strasburger said. “But the RJA acknowledges intentional discrimination is very hard to prove. It allows folks to look at data and other objective factors to prove there’s disparate treatment of people of color in the criminal justice system. This evidence can then serve as a basis to win more favorable outcomes for clients, some of whom should have never been in prison in the first place.”
Working with clients in the JIFS clinic, which is part of the Center for Juvenile Law and Policy at the Loyola Social Justice Law Clinic, Strasburger witnessed firsthand the consequences of racialized mass incarceration. Founded in 2012, the JIFS clinic advocates on behalf of wrongly convicted and unfairly sentenced youth. Strasburger’s live-client experiences as an LLS student echoed the stark data: though juvenile incarceration has declined significantly in the U.S. over the past two decades, racial disparities still loom large. In Los Angeles County, 99% of those given a gang enhancement in sentencing—which can add up to 25 years to prison terms — are people of color, according to a brief issued by the California Policy Lab.
While the RJA initially only applied to current and future cases, in 2023 the law was expanded to include cases once considered finalized. In the last year, motions have flooded prosecutors’ desks. At the same time, clinics offering pro bono legal services have struggled to fully leverage the law due to a lack of resources.
Given the complicated and time-consuming process for leveraging the RJA, Strasburger aims to provide critical training to LSJLC students, who not only can support client-facing work while they are in law school, but can also extend their impact through the RJA in their post-graduation careers. To this end, she’s building toolkits, templates, and resource banks to transfer her knowledge and experience and ensure the RJA’s long-term impact as a tool for justice.
Within JIFS, students have already begun this training, studying case records that span entire trials, interviewing jurors and witnesses, and researching relevant factors to create a library of evidence.
“As I learned about the Racial Justice Act, I became even more aware of the serious issues in our criminal justice system,” said Jessica Fitch, a third-year LLS student who is currently working with Strasburger in the JIFS clinic. “Finally having an avenue to raise and address these issues through the RJA is a step toward change.”
Beyond its importance as a tool, Strasburger also sees the RJA as a way to expand students’ understanding of how the legal system interplays with past and present contexts. “The RJA incorporates history, sociology, and politics — areas previously excluded from the law — into the law,” she said.
The RJA also provides full-circle moments for clients. “It’s validating for people who have known their whole lives that systemic racism put them where they are to see it finally acknowledged on the record,” Strasburger said.
Ultimately, Strasburger emphasizes the importance of pro bono, student-centered clinics like JIFS in supporting this work. “These clients are very underserved and are not guaranteed a right to counsel. It has to be organizations like JIFS that serve them.”