Pre-Approved Pro Bono Projects

The following projects are offered through the Pro Bono Program throughout the Spring 2012 semester:

• Advanced Healthcare Directives: Students will work with clients of the Public Law Center who are individuals living with HIV/AIDS or cancer patients. Student volunteers will provide intake, legal information, and assist clients in completing Advanced Healthcare Directives (AHCD) and Physical Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment(POLST).
• Armory Intake Clinics for the Homeless (Project organized by OCHRA): The Public Law Center (PLC) provides legal services to the homeless staying at the National Guard Armories. Law students will assist with intakes, usually in the areas of housing, debtor relief, employment matters, government benefit programs and family law.
• Bankruptcy Project: Students will work with attorneys from the Public Law Center (PLC) to provide in-depth intakes and assist clients to complete questionnaires and legal documents, including bankruptcy forms. Assistance in this area will allow some clients to save their homes, and others will be given a fresh start.
• Camp Pendleton Legal Assistance Office: Students will provide legal assistance to military officers, enlisted service members and their families in the areas of family law, consumer law, estate planning, and various other issues.
• Civil Litigation: Students will work with attorneys from McDermott Will & Emery on a pro bono civil litigation matter referred by the Public Law Center (PLC), which involves a dispute with a homeowner's association (HOA) over who is responsible for damages resulting from water leaks that has left the client without a functioning kitchen for over a year.
• Coastkeeper Volunteer: A student volunteer may provide legal research in areas of environmental permitting, review upcoming legislation, and possibly draft comment letters in response to permitting requests or local, environmental regulations.
• Communities for a Better Environment: CBE's mission is to achieve environmental health and justice by building grassroots power within and with communities of color and working-class communities. Volunteers may assist in the office, or provide assistance researching for a storm water case or a zoning matter.
• Community & Economic Development Project: Students are needed to volunteer with the CED unit of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, assisting with work in the areas of affordable housing, charter schools, land use, small business, non-profits, work force development, community benefits agreements, and more.
• Consumer Law Project: Students will work with attorneys from Public Counsel to provide assistance to low-income clients who have been victims of consumer fraud. Students will conduct detailed phone interviews and document review to determine the viability of the clients' cases for pro bono placement.
• Disabled and Elderly Benefits (SSI): Volunteers will work to secure Social Security Income (SSI) benefits for clients, which insures that a recipient's most basic needs are met through a living stipend and medical benefits. Student will volunteer with the Legal Aid Society of Orange County and will work with attorneys from O'Melveny and Myers LLP.
• Domestic Violence Casework: Attorneys from the firm of Latham & Watkins, LLP will supervise students working on complicated Restraining Orders for victims of domestic violence.
• Domestic Violence Declarations: Students will volunteer from 8:30 a.m. to approximately noon at the courthouse in Orange, assisting self-represented clients to prepare their declarations for their Temporary Restraining Orders.
• Domestic Violence Courthouse Clinics: Students volunteer in the DV clinics in Long Beach, Norwalk or Compton, assisting victims of domestic violence and elder abuse in preparing requests for restraining orders.
• Education Rights Project: Volunteer students will work with the Learning Rights Law Center to conduct in-person client intakes at LRLC’s offices in downtown Los Angeles, or work remotely briefing administrative cases in the area of education law.
• Environmental Litigation: Surfrider v. City of Dana Point - Students are needed to assist on the appeal to a Declaratory Judgment won by the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery LLP on behalf of Surfrider.
• Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project: Students will work on one of three projects: 1) Assisting Esperanza staff attorneys screening immigrant children being held at a detention center in Orange County; 2) Working with private, pro bono attorneys to provide assistance to detainees held at an adult detention center in Irvine; 3) Drafting case summaries of all 9th Circuit decisions published that week that affect immigration law.
• Expungement Clinics: Expungements allow individuals to seal or dismiss certain criminal convictions if particular requirements are met, allowing them to move on with their lives, and seek jobs that would otherwise not be available.
• Family Law Advocacy: Students will work with Bill Tanner, an attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, to assist low-income Orange County residents with all of their family law needs, including custody and visitation issues. Students may work with Bill on his cases, or assist at weekly family law clinics held at LASOC.
• Foreclosure Mitigation Unit: Students will assist Patricia Pinto, the managing attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, with her cases regarding loan modification and foreclosure prevention. Student work will include intakes, interviews, discovery, and preparation of legal documents.
• General Legal Services for the Poor: Students will assist Yolanda Omana, a senior attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, with work in areas of family law and unlawful detainer (landlord-tenant), but she is a generalist and works on a wide variety of cases.
• Global Access to Medicine: Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) aims to promote access to medicines for people in developing countries by changing norms and practices around university patenting and licensing. UCI Law students will research and draft equitable access licensing language as well as advocate to have the language accepted by the relevant administrative offices.
• Guardianships: Students will work with attorneys from Paul Hastings LLP to assist caretakers seeking probate guardianships of minor children. Students will interview the caretakers, prepare the guardianship forms, and attend the hearing with the supervising attorney. The cases are referred by the Public Law Center (PLC), and a PLC attorney will provide training and legal assistance.
• Haiti Human Rights Initiative: The Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) and its partners in Haiti need two students to help with international human rights research and writing projects.
• Health Consumer Action Center and Government Benefits: Students will assist the Legal Aid Society of Orange County with policy advocacy and also assist low-income clients in Orange County to access health care services and solve serious issues clients may have with their public benefits and/or medical insurance.
• HIV Immigration Project: Joseph Weiner of the HIV and AIDS Legal Services Alliance (“HALSA”) will supervise students assisting HIV positive clients with their immigration needs. Students may visit the Asylum Office in Anaheim, immigration court in L.A., or the detention center in the Santa Ana jail.
• Homeless Declarations for Impact Litigation: Volunteers are needed to conduct interviews and prepare declarations on behalf of Orange County residents that are seeking (or have previously sought) General Relief (GR) benefits.
• Housing Opportunities, Preservation, and Enforcement (Community Development): Public Counsel's Community Development Project - HOPE Unit is seeking a volunteer law student interested in working on ongoing redevelopment and relocation assistance litigation filed on behalf of low-income residents, and/or research and advocacy in collaboration with community-based organizations for equitable transit-oriented development.
• Housing Project with LASOC: Crystal Sims, Director of Litigation for the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, will supervise a student interested in housing issues (including predatory lending issues), subsidized housing, and landlord/tenant issues.
• Housing Project with PLC: Volunteers will conduct intakes and convey legal information to the homeless at the Public Law Center's Armory Legal Clinics, and provide follow-up assistance at PLC's office, which may include drafting case memos, research, letter writing, and communicating with clients and opposing parties.
• Inland Empire Latino Lawyers Association—Legal Aid Project: A student will volunteer at the IELLA office in Riverside, assisting low-income clients with their document preparation in the areas of small claims and family law.
• Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project (“IRAP”): Students will work in pairs under the supervision of pro bono attorneys to provide direct assistance to refugees seeking resettlement from abroad.
• Legal Aid Casework: One student will assist Renato Izquieta, an attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, in all of his practice areas, including tax, family law, homeless issues, and general litigation.
• Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition Research: During the 19th and 20th centuries, Native American children were sent to boarding schools to be indoctrinated in the Euro-American standard. The children, who were separated from their families and tribes, were often encouraged or forced to abandon their Native American language and culture. Students are needed to research potential litigation.
• Orange County District Attorney’s Office: Students will get significant exposure to issues of evidence and criminal procedure while observing in court, researching and writing, and possibly assisting with preparation for in-court appearances by an Assistant District Attorney.
• Pre-Litigation Research: Stephanie Haffner, an attorney with the Western Center on Law and Poverty, is in need of a student to assist with pre-litigation legal and factual research in the area of zoning for group homes.
• Public Defender's Office: Students will volunteer each week at one of the Public Defender's offices, either assisting an attorney with their caseload, or working on expungement cases with the New Leaf project.
• Services for Homeless and those on the Verge (formerly GRAP): Students assist clients with emergency benefits advocacy, particularly relating to shelter, food, health, transportation, and other social services needs. GRAP advocates routinely arrange for homeless individuals to receive shelter they would not otherwise have received, and assist indigent individuals in obtaining food and nutrition.
• Transactional and Intellectual Property Project: Students will work on cases referred through the Public Law Center’s Community Organizations Legal Assistance Project (“COLAP”). Projects may include Intellectual Property matters, website review, non-profit formation, or employment issues.
• Victims of Crime Special Visas (U-Visa): Students will be supervised by attorneys from Snell & Wilmer in preparing U-Visa requests for victims of crime, who have cooperated with law enforcement in the investigation related to their victimization. Cases are prepared and referred by the Public Law Center (PLC).

Emma Rosenberg (Class of 2013) traveled to Geneva in October 2011 to participate in the United Nations' Universal Periodic Review of Haiti. Emma lobbied for recommendations made by the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, an extension of a pro bono project she started the year before. She Tweeted live from Geneva for the University of California Haiti Initiative, and then wrote a full account of the experience in the November issue of the UCHI newsletter.

• Read Emma's account in the UCHI Newsletter.

Past semester project lists:
  • Fall 2011 projects
  • Spring 2010 projects
  • Fall 2010 projects