Equal Justice Works Seeks Justice for All

Written by Corinne Garcia Tuesday, March 15 2011

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 2010, Gina Clayton could probably have scored a job with any number of private law firms, making it easy to pay off the bills inevitably left over from an expensive law degree. But it never crossed her mind.

Instead, Clayton pursued a fellowship from Equal Justice Works, developing a program with the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem to provide legal services for women with children who are threatened with eviction from public or subsidized housing due to consequences of criminal charges. There’s no doubt that she’s making a lot less money than she could be with a private firm, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I went to law school because I was interested in using the law to help people who were not able to defend themselves or needed help to empower themselves and their community,” Clayton says. “I wanted to use law as a means to do that.”

And for Clayton, her ticket to gaining experience was Equal Justice Works, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a just society by grooming lawyers in the field of public interest. Through fellowships sponsored by larger private law firms and many Fortune 500 corporations, Equal Justice Works gives lawyers the opportunity to provide legal assistance to communities that may otherwise be overlooked.

Fellows like Clayton are responsible for developing their own projects and finding a host organization to hire them if they get accepted. After it receives applications, Equal Justice Works helps connect applicants with potential sponsors. Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, the organization has provided fellowships to more than 1,000 public interest attorneys and 2,500 law students since its inception.

“It’s truly a labor of love; the debt burden of these young lawyers is immense,” explains Equal Justice Works Deputy Director Susan Gurley. Most fellows have a background that is somewhat related to the work they do, she says. Whether they are children of immigrants or have experienced homelessness, they have some understanding of that community’s specific needs. And many went to law school with the goal of coming back to their roots to help.

Gurley notes that 125 of the current 170 fellows are women. “I think it attracts so many women because, based on statistics, more women are dealing with these issues,” she says. “There are more women in poverty and single mothers, so they may have a better understanding of these issues.”

Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps legal fellow Munmeeth Soni is a prime example. Although her parents emigrated to the United States from India with legal, professional visas, she grew up watching them face the same obstacles that many immigrants do. So from an early age, she always had an interest in immigration law. “That had so much to do with the kind of work I do today,” Soni says.

She heard about Equal Justice Works during her first year in law school at American University, but didn’t know about the AmeriCorps positions, which are placements funded by AmeriCorps grants as opposed to corporate sponsorship like the traditional fellowships.

“When I did see this position available, I jumped on it because I wanted to do immigration work,” she says. “That’s what motivated me in the first place to go to law school.”

Soni’s host organization is the Public Law Center in Santa Ana, Calif., where she is providing direct legal services to low-income clients in the area of immigration law. She is currently assisting victims of domestic violence, human trafficking, and other serious crimes in gaining lawful nonimmigrant status through T and U visas or petitioning for lawful permanent resident status under the Violence Against Women’s Act.

Now in her second year of a two-year fellowship, Soni feels lucky to have such an invaluable learning experience. “Once I got this position through Equal Justice Works, my host allowed me to take things and run with them,” she explains. “Both are very committed to creating a new core of public interest attorneys, and they do so by throwing you into the trenches. You quickly learn the ropes and figure things out, because there’s really such a huge need.”

Equal Justice Works creates a line of education and training otherwise unavailable to new lawyers, but it also fills a great need for different communities. “If not for these fellows, many people would not be receiving any assistance,” Gurley says.

And once a fellowship is over, the hopes are that these lawyers have the experience and the motivation to stay in the public interest field. Gurley reports that more than 60 percent of alums stay involved in this sector. “Our aim is not just short-term help, but that these lawyers remain in the field,” she says. “Otherwise we lose that skill set. We basically launch them, but we don’t want to lose them – that wouldn’t be a good long-term investment for anyone.”

Soni’s relationship with Equal Justice Works will continue after her AmeriCorps work, as she was recently accepted for a traditional fellowship to create an asylum program to help survivors of torture and persecution. “It’s a very supportive and encouraging environment,” Soni says. “Equal Justice Works is always there as a sounding board.”

Clayton, just about six months into her two-year fellowship, has every intention of staying in the public interest field as well. In fact, she hopes that her host organization will adopt her new program after her fellowship ends. And she says she couldn’t have done it without Equal Justice Works.

“They provide an extraordinary amount of training – how to set up your fellowship, ensure success, and track progress – that wouldn’t have otherwise come from anywhere else,” Clayton says. “Equal Justice Works comes in with a lot of resources that can help a fellow bump up a fellowship to the next level and hopefully help it to become an established program.”

And if Equal Justice Works wasn’t there for these lawyers and communities, who would be? Gurley’s not sure.

“There would be one less person telling a homeless mother where she could go to get Section 8 housing or one less person who can put a restraining order on an abusive ex-boyfriend,” Gurley explains. “All these souls and people are lost if nobody can help them. In the end it’s up to the clients to help themselves, but we are a conduit of information and help.”

For more information, see http://www.equaljusticeworks.org.

Corinne Garcia is a freelance writer and editor living with her husband and two young boys in Bozeman, Mont. She has also written for Women’s Adventure, Christian Science Monitor, Northwest Travel, Pregnancy, Fit Pregnancy, and Fit Parent.