Earlier this spring the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law, supported by the University of Texas Law School Foundation, received a two-year $1 million dollar grant from the Texas Access to Justice Foundation for a new “Community Assistance Project” (“CAP”). The CAP provides extensive community redevelopment assistance to legal aid attorneys and communities in Texas. The effort involves faculty, attorneys and students affiliated with Texas Law’s Environmental Clinic and Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic.
The CAP focuses on community development and environmental justice in low-income areas, working with legal aid attorneys and affected communities state-wide. The CAP supports attorneys and groups working to reduce environmental injustice and revitalize and stabilize low-income communities through four main activities: training legal aid attorneys and communities, providing case support, coordinating information, and developing high-impact legal tools and analysis.
Texas Law faculty working on the CAP include: Kelly Haragan and David Frederick (with the Environmental Clinic); Frances Martinez, Eliza Platts-Mills and Heather Way (with the Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic).
Lauren Loney ’17 was recently selected for a one-year post-graduate fellowship with the CAP. She will work closely with the CAP attorneys and will be housed at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid in Austin. While a law student, Loney participated in the Legislative Lawyering Clinic, interned with the New York State Office of the Attorney General’s Environmental Protection Bureau, and worked in Austin with both the Save Our Springs Alliance and the Lower Colorado River Authority. She was co-president of the Environmental Law Society and vice president of the Student Animal Legal Defense League. Before law school, she earned a master’s degree in Aquatic Resources and worked as an aquatic biologist.