La Alianza Workers’ and Tenants’ Rights Clinic is the oldest SLP project at Berkeley Law, created in 1969 by La Raza law students who founded Centro Legal after seeing the immense need for free legal representation in Oakland’s Latinx community. The historic organization has since become a cornerstone of legal services in Oakland, serving the Bay Area and now all of Northern California in the areas of Workers’ Rights, Tenants’ Rights, and Immigration. Centro Legal also now runs an innovative Youth Law Academy.
The SLP is divided into two parts, the Tenants’ Rights clinic and the Workers’ Rights clinic. Students have the opportunity to participate in both clinics. The Tenants’ Rights clinic meets and serves tenants facing a range of housing issues, including evictions, illegal rent increases, harassment from landlords, and uninhabitable conditions. The goal of this clinic is to stop the displacement of low-income residents and stabilize rapidly changing communities through eviction defense. The Workers’ Rights clinic serves predominantly Spanish-speaking and immigrant workers who are facing a variety of job-related issues, including wage theft, discrimination and sexual harassment, retaliation, unemployment, and health and safety.
Students will have the opportunity to hone their interviewing, client service, and legal analysis skills. Students will likely have the opportunity to write demand letters, complaints, Civil Rights violation claims, and Rent Board petitions.
Supervision: Students will receive training from and provide pro bono legal services under the supervision of attorneys at Centro Legal de La Raza.
Time Commitment: 10-15 hours per semester, with the opportunity for more with three mandatory trainings. There will be approximately “x” clinics scheduled throughout the semester, and we encourage students to participate in as many of them as they can. It is essential that students actually come to all of the clinics they commit to attend, and give at least one week’s advance notice if they have to change their plans.
For more information, please contact the student leaders at LaAlianzaSLP@berkeley.edu.