Susan Abrams works with the Children's Law Center of Los Angeles in California.  The Children? Law Center serves as appointed counsel for abused and neglected youth in Los Angeles County.  It is the largest representative of foster youth in California, advocating for the vast majority (over 80 percent) of the 30,000 children under the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Dependency Court.  

Cecilia Abundis works on the Source of Income Discrimination Project with the Lawyers?Äô Committee for Better Housing (LCBH).  Her project stems from a test LCBH conducted in 2002 for the source of income discrimination to determine whether Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) holders were being discriminated against in the private rental market.  In addition to the newly created Source of Income Discrimination Project, LCBH provides representation to low-income tenants in eviction court, through its Attorney of the Day Eviction Defense Project.  

Lauren Adams works on the Juvenile Death Penalty Initiative at the Children and Family Justice Center (CFJC) of the Bluhm Legal Clinic at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago.  Lauren focuses on the sentencing of juvenile offenders (those individuals who commit crimes before reaching the age of 18).  Her project is designed to represent children in juvenile court in Illinois, as well as to support efforts for legislation prohibiting the execution of juvenile offenders in states with a juvenile death penalty.  

Wes Addington is restarting the Mine Safety Project at the Appalachian Law Center, which will work to reduce mining injuries and deaths by promoting improved safety conditions for miners in the Appalachian coalfields.  The Project will give miners a place to turn for legal help in safety-related disputes.  In addition to representing miners, the Project will also monitor and comment upon proposed changes to state and federal mine safety laws and will work with miners to have a more active voice on issues of mine safety.  

Mirna Adjami spearheads a project with the Midwest Immigrant and Human Rights Center (MIHRC), focusing on the impact of post-9/11 laws and policies on immigrants’ rights.  MIHRC offers comprehensive services and legal representation to low-income immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers from Chicago’s diverse immigrant communities.  Mirna counsels and represents asylum applicants and immigrants seeking protection from removal under available legal remedies.  

A South Carolina native, Amanda Adler addressed the education needs of her state’s low-income and minority students.  Through her Equal Justice Works project she supported and trained the South Carolina Legal Services community, provided legislative and administrative advocacy, researched and reported on state education policies and collaborated with others whose work impacted those living in poverty.  Ongoing accountability programs are driving education reform in South Carolina, and high-stakes testing, school report cards and implementation of new federal laws have already changed the lives of students in dramatic ways.  

The project provides specialized legal services, education and advocacy on behalf of undocumented immigrant children victims of abuse in Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas, Manatee and Sarasota counties.  .  

My project is aimed at providing free legal education and representation to low-income residents of the rural counties north of the Houston area.  The goal of my project is to help low-income residents help themselves through education.    If they run into trouble, I will also provide direct representation.  

Rebecca Aledort works for the Pro Bono Project serving low-income clients in Southeast Louisiana with family law issues.  The family law unit at the Pro Bono Project has always had a high volume of cases, but post Katrina, many of the family law small practioners were unable to return to New Orleans.  Rebecca is working with another family law attorney to reengage the local bar and plans to strengthen a remote network of law student volunteers and to further engage area law students in local pro bono work.  

Lisa Alexander is using both litigation and transactional legal strategies to increase viable affordable housing opportunities in Chicago’s low-income minority communities.  Lisa is engaged in litigation, community education and advocacy to combat impediments to the affordable housing movement, such as racial discrimination, predatory lending and exclusionary zoning.  Lisa is currently working on the landmark case Wallace v.  

Tutu Alicante represented migrant workers primarily recruited from the Texas border region to work in poultry and catfish processing plants throughout the southeast.  Migrant workers are lured to the work with false promises of steady employment, adequate, employer-provided housing, transportation and other benefits.  Over the past decade, a new kind of migrant worker has emerged in response to changes in the economic and employment patterns in poultry, catfish and meat processing industries.  

To meet the unique legal needs of homeless youth and youth at risk of homelessness Zenaida Alonzo works with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless to establish, Youth Futures, a mobile kid-friendly legal clinic.  Zenaida travels to locations where homeless youth can be found.  For example, libraries, the beach front, youth drop in centers and youth homeless shelters.  

NDS approaches the role of the public defender from a holistic perspective, addressing collateral issues that arise from and contribute to involvement with the criminal justice system.  My project addresses the needs of members of immigrant communities in Harlem and Washington Heights who have been left vulnerable to deportation due to ongoing or prior criminal cases.  The project seeks to minimize clients’ exposure to the risk of deportation through collaborative work with NDS defenders, and to provide direct representation in immigration matters.  

Adrianna organized and supported powerful new virtual communities of public interest lawyers on a national level.  .  

Vanessa is an Equal Justice Fellow at the Learning Rights Law Center, where she directs the Los Angeles Family Advocacy Program (LAFAP).  LAFAP is a medical legal collaboration between doctors and lawyers designed to improve the well being of patients and their families by increasing their access to legal services.  Working at the AltaMed General Pediatric Clinic at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA), Vanessa works closely with hospital staff to identify legal issues that confront patients and their families, with an emphasis on special education issues.  

At the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC), I assist legal permanent residents in obtaining citizenship status by coordinating citizenship application support workshops.  In addition, I coordinate APALC's immigration clinics, where attendees come in for advice and counsel on a host of immigration issues, ranging from deportation to adjustment of status.  .  

The Consumer Law Project advocates on behalf of indigent victims of consumer fraud and abuse.  Though community legal clinics, direct representation and legislative advocacy, CLP's mission is to defend and advance the consumer interests of the most vulnerable members of society.  The Appellate Law Program, another project with which I'm involved here at Public Counsel, helps pro se indigent litigants better represent themselves in their civil appellate matters and provides pro bono representation in selected appeals.  

Shannon is working with Public Law Center's Community Organizations Legal Assistance Project (COLAP).  She provides pro bono legal counsel to existing nonprofit organizations and groups that want to form new charitable organizations.  Additionally, she teaches seminars on how to start a nonprofit organization and collaborates with community nonprofit technical assistance providers to hold a number of other legal education seminars.  

Rachel Andron works on the Family Justice Through Unbundling Project at the City Bar Fund, a non-profit affiliate of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.  Her project seeks to address the legal needs of low-income New Yorkers in the areas of family law, matrimonial law and consumer law.  Due to the complexity of and the lack of resources in the legal services community, the Family Justice Through Unbundling Project examines the use of unbundled legal services, such as hotlines and clinics.  

Stacy Antonucci’s host organization, Children's Rights, advocates for abused and neglected children in failing foster care systems across the nation.  Stacy used policy, public education and the power of the courts to protect African-American foster children’s right to be safe and adequately cared for while in the custody of the government.  Although the majority of the nation’s foster children are African-American, they receive disproportionately poorer care and services than their non-African-American counterparts.  

We have two Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Fellows in the Gainesville office of Three Rivers Legal Services.  Our main project is to organize and run law student volunteer clinics and outreach programs, which provide valuable legal experience to the law student volunteers while also providing legal services and education to the underserved community of North Florida.  In addition to organizing and running the clinics, we also handle a small case load.  

“You must know your rights in order to assert them,” posits Tania Archer.  As an African-American woman, Tania understands the importance of identifying the rights of minorities and empowering those communities to fight against discrimination and exploitation.  As an Equal Justice Works fellow, Tania continued her service to the Hispanic community by providing legal assistance and representation to those living in Mecklenburg County.  

Z Arkles is working at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project to increase access to housing and healthcare to low-income transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming people.  He uses multiple strategies to address systemic issues faced by these profoundly underserved communities.  The Sylvia Rivera Law Project is the first and only legal service organization that focuses on the needs of low-income transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming people.  

Amy Armstrong is a fellow at the South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP).  Having lived in South Carolina for over twenty years, Amy has developed a love and appreciation for coastal resources and has witnessed indiscriminate development force low-income and minority groups from their land and livelihood.  South Carolina’s coastal zone management program has seriously declined and is failing to protect the public interest, leaving the coastal zone in critical need of protection.  

Jaimee Arnone's project focuses on substandard housing in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville.  She reports that tenants are often afraid to complain about their housing for fear of being evicted, which could lead to homelessness for themselves and their families.  While the East Bay Community Law Center's (EBCLC) Housing Unit defends tenants who are being evicted, it does not have the resources to tackle the substandard housing problem in a comprehensive manner.  

The son of Mexican immigrants, Steve Arredondo has worked with a broad range of immigrant rights groups to empower and provide them with equal access to the basic rights that non-immigrants take for granted.  Prior to joining the Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates (KIWA) as an Equal Justice Works Fellow, Steve worked at KIWA as a legal intern.  He also clerked at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and El Rescate.  

Delaine Arrington is a fellow at Brevard County Legal Aid in Rockledge.  She focuses on the needs of pro se litigants in Brevard County through the design and evaluation of a pro se program.  The program provides litigants with legal information and advice so that they can effectively represent themselves in family law cases.  

Akira Arroyo ran the Small Business Initiative at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York Fund, Inc (City Bar Fund).  Akira began her fellowship with the City Bar Fund on September 13, 2001, only two days after the events of 9/11.  As a result, the focus of Akira’s original project proposal changed in response.  

Ahilan T.  Arulanantham, a member of the Tamil ethnic minority from Sri Lanka, worked at the Immigrants Rights Project of the ACLU.  Tamils have been fleeing Sri Lanka in large numbers since 1983, in the face of a brutal war that has left the Tamil civilian population vulnerable to violence at the hands of Sri Lanka's government.  

ProBAR has been committed to providing legal services to immigrants in Texas with a focus on asylum seekers.  My project allows ProBAR to expand its legal assistance program to include one of the largest detention facilities in the United States – the Willacy County Processing Center – often referred to as the “Tent City.  ” I am providing legal services to the largely unrepresented immigrant population at the facility, including “know your rights” presentations, pro se assistance, connecting asylum seekers with pro bono counsel and direct representation.