Clinical and Pro Bono Programs

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Tag: PLAP

Students honored at 2018 Class Day ceremony

June 5, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Via Harvard Law Today

Class Day 2018 3

Credit: Heratch Ekmekjian

Tabitha Cohen (left) and Edith Sangueza, two of the many students recognized during the Class Day 2018 ceremony for various accomplishments during their time at Harvard Law School. Cohen and Sangueza (along with Annie Manhardt, not pictured) were awarded with the Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Award, given each year to students who demonstrate an extraordinary commitment to improving and delivering high quality volunteer legal services in low-income communities.

A number of Harvard Law students from the Class of 2018 received special awards during the Class Day ceremony on May 23. They were recognized for outstanding leadership, citizenship, compassion and dedication to their studies and the profession.

Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award

This year’s Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award was presented to Tabitha Cohen, Annie Manhardt and Edith Sangueza. (Read more)

Edith Sangueza contributed nearly 2,000 pro bono hours by working with three student practice organizations – Harvard Immigration Project (HIP), Harvard Law Student Advocates for Human Rights, and Project No One Leaves – in addition to working as a student attorney for four semesters with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB). She spent her 2016 Spring Break volunteering with South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project, in Harlingen, Texas, and her 2017 Spring Break volunteering with American Gateways, in San Antonio. Her commitment to social justice also extended throughout her summers – she worked with Instituto para las Mujeres en la Migración, in Mexico City, and with the Bronx Defenders, in New York.

Three students win Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Awards 1

Credit: Lorin Granger

Tabitha Cohen and Annie Manhardt

At Harvard Law School, Tabitha Cohen and Annie Manhardt both participated in the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project (PLAP) and the Criminal Justice Institute (CJI). At PLAP, they spent hundreds of pro bono hours as co-executive directors, managing a multitude of daily internal governance and programming issues. Throughout their time, they demonstrated tireless effort and dedication to advocating for the needs of prisoners by conducting investigations, counseling and interviewing clients, and presenting compelling arguments at hearings.

In a precedent-setting case for an elderly disabled parole client Cohen argued before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court whose ruling extended the Americans with Disabilities Act to mentally and physically disabled prisoners seeking parole. As a result of the case, the state must now help parolees get support systems in place in the community.

While at HLS, Manhardt also worked with Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts and the Office of the Defender General in Vermont. Cohen worked with the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program , the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Florida and La Fundacion para el Acceso a la Justicia de Puerto Rico in San Juan.

The Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award is granted each year in honor of Professor Andrew Kaufman ’54, who has been instrumental in creating and supporting the Pro Bono Service Program at HLS.  J.D. students in the graduating class who demonstrate an exemplary commitment to pro bono work receive the award and an honorarium.

HLS requires all students to perform 50 hours of pro bono services but most go far beyond. This year, 10 students exceeded 2,000 hours of service and 112 students volunteered more than 1,000 hours.

In total, the Harvard Law School Class of 2018 contributed 376,532 hours of pro bono legal work.

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Students honored at 2017 Class Day

May 25, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Via Harvard Law Today

A number of Harvard Law students from the Class of 2017 received special awards during the 2017 Class Day ceremony on May 24. They were recognized for outstanding leadership, citizenship, compassion and dedication to their studies and the profession.

Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award

Credit: Heratch Photography Lisa K. Dicker ’17 and Nathan MacKenzie ’17

Credit: Heratch Photography

Lisa K. Dicker ’17 and Nathan MacKenzie ’17

This year’s Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award was presented to Lisa K. Dicker ’17 and Nathan MacKenzie ’17.

Dicker has devoted her time at Harvard Law to public service, starting her 1L year with HLS Negotiators, serving first as a member and later as its co-president. She spent her 1L spring break in Nashville, TN, working pro bono with Equal Justice Under Law, a non-profit civil rights organization founded by two HLS alumni. During the trip, Dicker and fellow students helped challenge widespread practices that penalize the poor: jail time for failure to pay fines, cash and property seizure in the absence of criminal charges, and the failure to provide competent lawyers.

While at Harvard Law School, Dicker has not only performed more than 1,500 hours of pro bono work, but she also served as part of a corps of trained student facilitators who volunteer to facilitate discussions among members of the HLS community on challenging and politically fraught topics. She also twice served as a teaching assistant for the Negotiation Workshop.

At HLS, MacKenzie participated in Harvard Defenders, the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project, the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, and created his own independent clinical placement with the Migrants Rights Clinic at the Center of Law and Business, in Ramat Gan, Israel. 

 MacKenzie’s contributions to the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program have helped transform lives; his legal work was pivotal in obtaining asylum for a teenager fleeing gang violence and in preventing the imminent deportation of a woman who had been unlawfully denied a chance to present her asylum claim. He also worked long hours and late nights orchestrating the research needed for an amicus brief challenging the White House’s executive orders on immigration.

The Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award is granted each year in honor of Professor Andrew Kaufman ’54, who has been instrumental in creating and supporting the Pro Bono Service Program at HLS. The J.D. student in the graduating class who performs the highest number of pro bono service hours receives the award and a $500 honorarium.

HLS requires all students to perform 50 hours of pro bono services but most go far beyond. This year, 10 students exceeded 2,000 hours of service and 100 students volunteered more than 1,000 hours.

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Erika Johnson ’17 wins David Grossman Exemplary Clinical Student Award

May 16, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Via Harvard Law Today

Credit: Lorin Granger/HLS Staff Photographer Erika Johnson ’17

Credit: Lorin Granger/HLS Staff Photographer
Erika Johnson ’17

Erika Johnson is this year’s winner of the David A. Grossman Exemplary Clinical Student Award. The award is named in honor of the late Clinical Professor of Law David Grossman ’88, a public interest lawyer dedicated to providing high-quality legal services to low income communities. The award recognizes students who have demonstrated excellence in representing individual clients and undertaking advocacy or policy reform projects.

Having contributed more than 2,000 hours of pro bono services to clients through the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB), the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project (PLAP), and Project No One Leaves, Johnson is the embodiment of Grossman’s tireless pro bono spirit. She was chosen for her compassion in legal practice and for her contributions to HLS’s clinical community.

Her clinical supervisors at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau recall one elderly client Johnson protected from homelessness. The client had been living in supportive housing for homeless elders for almost ten years, but after the facility went smoke-free he had trouble quitting and faced eviction. Over the next six months, Johnson attended more twelve court hearings, fighting tirelessly to stave off the eviction, but the client’s disabilities made it impossible for him to stop smoking. Realizing that her client had nowhere else to go, Johnson built a relationship with a social worker and found him an apartment with medical support services. Johnson even made sure to find him a bed and then physically moved it and most of the client’s other belongings into his new home on a cold winter’s day.

In another eviction case, Johnson followed her client’s lead in pursuing greater racial and economic justice. The client felt strongly that he had been wronged by his landlord, arguing the language used against him was racially biased. “Erika listened, at length,” said Clinical Professor Esme Caramello, who teaches in the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. Johnson convinced the HLAB Board to take the case and then fully devoted herself to researching and drafting legal documents, achieving not only the dismissal of the eviction but also moving to recover damages for her client.

“Erika’s approach [was] creative, but it [was] her persistence in following the client’s lead despite the ‘typical’ trajectory of such a case, and the steadiness of her hard work, that have impressed us the most,” her clinical supervisors said.

“I am grateful to the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau for its support and its embodiment of the values David Grossman modeled as a teacher and lawyer,” said Johnson. “Dave’s compassion, dedication, and commitment to community and to our clients are inspiring to every member of HLAB. I feel honored to have been part of this community, and I will rely on this experience and these values in all of my future work.”

On campus, Johnson has also collaborated with the Harvard Law Entrepreneurship Project, a student practice organization that hosted a competition in which students created technology solutions to access to justice problems in the local housing courts. She met with the student leaders of the project, taught them about the court system and the challenges unrepresented tenants face, trained them in basic eviction law and procedure, and then judged the final projects. Her clinical supervisors noted that she did this expertly and almost entirely on her own — all as a second-year law student with a full course load and a substantial docket of housing cases.

After graduation, Erika will pursue a career in public interest law, a choice that she says was shaped by her HLAB clients and colleagues.

Military and academic experts explain legal and cultural issues in counter terror operations

April 12, 2017 / / 0 Comments

The second annual symposium on Legal and Cultural Issues in Counter Terror Operations was held on April 8 at Harvard Law School.  Organized by John Fitzpatrick ’87, a Senior Clinical Instructor at the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project, and a Major in the US Army Reserve, the symposium brought together over 30 military personnel and legal experts whose work focuses on the areas of Islamic and human rights law as well as on cultural and international security issues.

Members of the Army's Judge Advocate General's (JAG) Corps are pictured with Professor Doug Johnson of the Kennedy School, who spoke to the group on the strategic implications of torture.

Members of the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps are pictured with Professor Doug Johnson of the Kennedy School, who spoke to the group on the strategic implications of torture.

This event featured presentations from scholars at HLS, the Kennedy School, the University of Massachusetts, and the US Naval War College. Salma Waheedi, a Clinical Advocacy Fellow at the International Human Rights Clinic and a Visiting Fellow at the Islamic Legal Studies Program, addressed developments in Islamic law; and Professor Doug Johnson, Faculty Director of the Kennedy School of Government’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, spoke about the strategic implications of torture. In addition, a screening of Eye in the Sky was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Major Fitzpatrick with Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Ford, a Professor at the Naval War College specializing in the law of war for targeting; and Professor John Kaag of the University of Massachusetts, co-author of the recent book “Drone Warfare,” a comprehensive examination of legal, ethical and philosophical problems with the military use of unmanned aerial vehicles.

“It was a privilege to host these distinguished speakers, each of whom agreed to appear at HLS on short notice,” said Fitzpatrick. “This is a continuing effort to break down barriers between the civilian academic bubble and military academic bubble regarding legal  issues of modern warfare. There has been an unfortunate tendency for civilian and military academics to retreat to their own echo chambers, instead of dialoguing constructively with each other. Events like this are small in scale, but hopefully can have a cumulatively larger, positive impact in bridging the knowledge gaps between the civilian and military academic worlds.”

A Warm Welcome to New Clinicians

August 1, 2016 / / 0 Comments

The Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs extends a warm welcome to Toiya Taylor (Clinical Instructor) and Lisa Fitzgerald (Clinical Fellow) of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, Rachel Krol (Clinical Instructor and Lecturer on Law) of the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Program, and Michelle Kweder (Administrative Director) of the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project.

Rachel Krol
Clinical Instructor and Lecturer on Law

Before joining the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Program, Rachel taught negotiation at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and led interactive negotiation and leadership workshops designed specifically for young women through her company, Connect More Consulting.

Rachel has also served as a teaching team member for executive education seminars offered by the Harvard Negotiation Institute and courses at Penn Law School and Vienna University of Economics and Business. In addition, Rachel has worked on negotiation and conflict resolution projects with nonprofit, educational, and governmental institutions including Seeds of Peace, GenHERation, the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at SCH Academy, and the National Institutes of Health. She practiced law with the firms Drinker, Biddle & Reath LLP and Ahmad Zaffarese LLC in Philadelphia, in the areas of finance, securities, and civil litigation.

Rachel received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and her B.A. from Columbia University. Prior to attending law school, she taught at the International Montessori School of Prague in the Czech Republic. Rachel is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and a Clinical Instructor at HNMCP.

Toiya Taylor
Clinical Instructor

Toiya Taylor began her legal career as a Law Clerk for the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court in 2000, and opened her own law practice in 2002.  She practiced extensively in both the Massachusetts Juvenile and Probate and Family Courts as both an attorney and a Guardian Ad Litem.  She represented parents and/or children in care and protection, guardianship, child support, child custody, DYS revocation and delinquency matters. She also served as an ARC attorney in the Norfolk and Suffolk County Probate and Family Courts where she represented children pro bono in high conflict matters to assist with resolution.

Taylor was also a mentor for new panel members of the Children and Family Law Division of the Committee for Public Counsel Services and a bar advocate with Suffolk Lawyers for Justice, Inc. in both the Dorchester Juvenile and West Roxbury District Courts.

She received her J.D. from Boston College Law School and is the 2014 recipient of the Mary Fitzpatrick Award for Outstanding and Zealous Advocacy to the Poor.

Lisa Fitzgerald
Clinical Fellow

Lisa Fitzgerald joins the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau after graduating from Harvard Law School this year. As a student, she participated in a number of Student Practice Organizations including the Harvard Mediation Program and the Harvard Immigration Project. She is also an alumna of HLAB, having been a student attorney in the clinic for 2 years.

Michelle Kweder
Administrative Director

Michelle joins the Prison Legal Assistance Project (PLAP) with recent experience as a Lecturer at Simmons College where she taught undergraduates in the College of Arts & Sciences and MBA students at the School of Management. She has a diverse background, having served in former Boston Mayor Menino’s Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and as the executive director of a domestic violence agency, a consultant to mission-driven organizations, and a volunteer instructor teaching entrepreneurship at NECC-Concord prison. She recently completed her Ph.D. at UMass Boston in Business Administration – Organizations and Social Change. Michelle is replacing Sarah Morton who will return to PLAP next year.

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