Samantha Acuña
Samantha Acuña is a staff attorney with RAICES (the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services) based in Austin. Immediately after graduating from law school, she worked at the Equal Justice Center in Austin helping to expand its employment law representation of immigrant and low-wage workers in South Texas, with a particular focus on the Rio Grande Valley. Her work was supported by the Ramsey Clark Fellowship in Public Interest Law, funded by a generous gift from family of Ramsey Clark, who was U.S. Attorney General during the Johnson administration and a force behind civil rights laws of the era.
At Texas Law, Sam was a student ambassador with the Admissions Office, a Public Service Scholar with the Justice Center, administrative editor of the Texas Journal on Civil Liberties & Civil Rights, and an active member of the Chicano/Hispanic Law Students Association. She participated in the Transnational Workers Rights Clinic and the Immigration Clinic, and volunteered to assist residents of the Texas Rio Grande Valley as part of Pro Bono in January, the Mithoff Pro Bono Program’s annual winter break service trip.
Sam spent the summer after her 1L year working with the ACLU of Texas in Brownsville and the summer after her 2L year working with the University of Texas System in Austin. Her summer at the ACLU of Texas was supported by a Charles Moyer Human Rights Fellowship awarded by the Rapoport Center.