LOS ANGELES – Loyola Law School, Los Angeles will celebrate the grand opening of its Loyola Social Justice Law Clinic (LSJLC) and the inauguration of the Collateral Consequences of Conviction Justice Project (CCCJP), a partnership with Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Office of Reentry, during a ceremony to be held from 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018 on Loyola’s downtown L.A. campus.
The event will commemorate the aggregation of Loyola’s criminal defense, immigration, postconviction relief and other clinics in a newly renovated space, designed like a law firm to provide shared services to students, clients and attorneys. The space includes the CCCJP, which is charged with helping clients reclaim their lives after incarceration. Under the supervision of Staff Attorney Elie Miller, student advocates represent clients seeking to clean their records for purposes of employment, immigration, child support and professional licensing.
“The project is all about L.A. because helping people re-enter their community and find good jobs makes L.A. better for all of us,” said Sean Kennedy ’89, Kaplan & Feldman Executive Director of the Loyola Center for Juvenile Law & Policy (CJLP), which is helping administer the project.
Scheduled speakers include Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti; Timothy Law Snyder, president, Loyola Marymount University; and Michael Waterstone, Fritz B. Burns Dean, Loyola Law School. The ceremony will be followed by an LSJLC open house in which clinic students, staff attorneys and directors will be on-hand to discuss their work.
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“Our clinic students work under the supervision of our faculty to represent a variety of people in our community with important, unmet legal needs,” said Dean Waterstone. “The Loyola Social Justice Law Clinic is exciting because it brings all of those clinics together under one roof on our campus, forming our own social justice law firm.”
Thanks to a dramatic renovation of nearly 23,000 square feet of Loyola’s Founders Hall, the new LSJLC houses together for the first time several Law School clinics: Center for the Study of Law & Genocide, CCCJP, International Human Rights Clinic, Juvenile Innocence & Fair Sentencing Clinic, Juvenile Justice Clinic, Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic (LIJC), Loyola Project for the Innocent (LPI) and Youth Justice Education Clinic, to name a few.
The reorganization allows Loyola’s clinics to better support their clients through efficiencies in shared services. Clinics share support staff, case-management software and amenities like conference rooms and a client waiting area, providing students a more realistic look at the life of a law practice.
“Many of our law students come to the law school wanting to make a difference in the world,” said Cindy Archer, Associate Dean for Clinical Programs & Experiential Learning. “When they come to the LSJLC to represent clients, they’re reminded about their ability to impact others and make a difference in the community and beyond.”
The clinics housed in the new LSJLC have experienced significant growth due in part to the securing of a series of competitive grants. Those include a $1 million grant for the CJLP to create a program for foster youth, a $260,000 grant for the LIJC to create training programs for advocates of clients facing detention and deportation, and a $230,000 Department of Justice grant for the LPI to add an attorney and investigator.
Loyola has long been committed to social justice, with more than 1 million pro bono hours donated to 50,000-plus clients since the school’s 1920 founding. The first ABA-accredited school in California to institute a pro bono requirement for graduation, Loyola’s students annually donate about 60,000 of pro bono services.
All Loyola Social Justice Law Clinic grand opening events will be held on Loyola’s campus at 919 Albany St., Los Angeles, CA 90015. Learn more about the LSJLC, its clinics and the grand opening event at www.lls.edu/LSJLC.
About Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
Located on an award-winning Frank Gehry-designed campus in downtown Los Angeles, Loyola Law School is home to prominent faculty, dedicated students and cutting-edge programs. The Law School strives to instill in students the knowledge they need to excel on their chosen paths. It dedicates itself to preparing students for the rigors of practice with an extensive portfolio of practical-training opportunities, a 17,000-strong alumni network and a focus on social justice. Learn more at www.lls.edu.
