Tag: William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law

On January 6–11, 2013, the Pro Bono Program will take thirty students as well as several faculty members to the Texas Rio Grande Valley during the second week of January. This will be Pro Bono in January’s fourth year in the Valley. This year the Pro Bono Program is partnering with the Texas Civil Rights Project in Austin to organize clinics in the San Juan area to assist pro se youth to petition for relief under the recently launched Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. At the clinics, students and volunteer attorneys will help high-school DACA petitioners (aka “DREAMers”) complete forms and compile documents to file with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The Law School’s William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law and Children’s Rights Clinic have helped develop a multi-stakeholder pilot education reform project focused on youth entering the child welfare system in Travis County. The Education Advocacy Pilot Project, an initiative of the Travis County Model Court for Children and Families, launched last week and will continue through the 2012–2013 school year.

The Law School’s William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law is partnering with the UT Division of Diversity and Community Engagement (DDCE) to fund a two-year research fellow to work on a new “School-to-Prison Pipeline” project. Meg Clifford, ’12, has been selected for the position.

Every summer, UT Law students carry out public-interest legal work thanks to fellowships funded by donations to the Law School and administered by the Law School's William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law. We will be adding more stories about our Summer 2012 Fellows and the work they did over the coming weeks.

The William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law and the UT Center for Disability Studies have completed the first phase of their work to assist the Texas state housing finance and Medicaid agencies in an application for federal funding available through the Frank Melville Supportive Housing Act of 2010. The Act resulted in significant changes to federal law governing housing for persons with disabilities, incentivizing states to develop new and innovative ways to support persons with disabilities in integrated environments. States will compete for a total of $85 million made available by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The University of Texas School of Law has awarded the eighth Equal Justice Scholarship to Christopher Larson, an incoming first-year law student. The scholarship covers tuition and fees for three years of legal study. Larson has committed to working after law school on a full-time basis for three years providing direct legal services to low-income individuals or groups at a nonprofit organization in the U.S.

Seven graduating students at the University of Texas School of Law have been honored by the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law for their extraordinary commitment during Law School to using the law to serve others.

Five students at the University of Texas School of Law have been selected to receive Baron & Budd Public Interest Summer Fellowships for the coming summer. The program will provide each fellow with a $4,250 stipend to work fulltime for at least ten weeks providing legal services to underrepresented individuals or communities.

Six students at the University of Texas School of Law have been selected as the 2012 Whitehurst Public Interest Summer Fellows. The fellowships are made possible by a gift from Bill, ’70, and Stephanie Whitehurst, and are administered by the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law at the Law School. The fellowships are awarded annually to outstanding students between their second and third years of law school to support their summer public-interest work.

Students and faculty members from the University of Texas at Austin will will fan out across the U.S.-Mexico border region during the second week in January to volunteer on a range of law-related projects, providing over 2,000 legal service hours for multiple organizations.

In celebration of National Pro Bono Week (October 23–29), the UT Law Pro Bono Program is pleased to announce that second-year students Meredith Kincaid and Gwen Vindell have been selected to serve as Pro Bono Scholars for the 2011–2012 academic year.

In recognition of National Pro Bono Week (October 23–29), the UT Law Pro Bono Program celebrates the pro bono efforts of members of the Law School community. Recently the Pro Bono Program spoke with Brandi Weaver, director of Student Services in the Law School’s Student Affairs Office, about her work representing clients in divorce cases through Volunteer Legal Services.