To read the State Fees Report Press Release, please click here.
In the Policy Advocacy Clinic, interdisciplinary teams of law and public policy students pursue non-litigation strategies on behalf of underrepresented individuals and groups to address systemic racial, economic and social injustice in the community. The clinic’s approach is bottom-up (grounded in the lives of real people), problem-based (addressing pressing social issues) and client-driven (accountable to actual organizational clients). Students will learn how to support change campaigns at the local and state level, while exploring the capacities and limits of lawyers to influence law and public policy.
Current projects include California-based efforts to:
- Repeal fees imposed on the families of youth in the juvenile justice system,
- End the criminalization of homeless people,
- Improve police accountability in low-income communities of color,
- Increase support services to commercially sexually exploited children, and
- Reform the money bail system.
In the seminar and clinic, students learn the substantive law and policy skills relevant to the clinic’s projects and goals. In the clinic, students hone and deploy a broad range of strategies and skills, including: interviewing clients and experts, conducting legal and social science research and analysis, consulting stakeholders (community members, legal policy and advocacy organizations, public officials, academics and others), presenting oral advocacy, drafting legislation and administrative rules, and participating in public education, media campaigns, group representation and coalition building.
Students complete written assignments, including drafts to moot with other students, internal work product for clients, and external work product for public dissemination to further clients’ goals, such as policy briefs, research reports, practice manuals and know your rights materials.
Clinic faculty members include Clinical Professor of Law Jeff Selbin and Clinical Supervising Attorney Stephanie Campos-Bui.
PAC Students Present Research Findings on Juvenile Fees at Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors Meeting (October 25, 2016).
For more details about the clinic, see:
People
Clinic News
Information for Students
Clinic Projects
Clinic Publications