Each of these four students is working on a public interest project that will give him or her valuable legal experience, and will also shed light on parts of legal practice that are not usually found in many law firms.
Alyssa Reed is going out to the fields of Colorado to talk with migrant farm workers about their legal rights with the Colorado Legal Services' Migrant Farm Worker Division, Denver, Colo.
Todd Schmidt is fighting for accessibility rights for people with disabilities with Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago.
E.J. Flynn is serving low income people directly with the University of Iowa's clinical law program, and also working with the Iowa Nonprofit Resource Center, Iowa City, which provides legal resources for nonprofits.
In addition, Dohrman does client intake for the Senior Project, which helps low-income seniors with questions on landlord tenant issues, medical coverage issues, public benefits, and other legal hurdles faced by this age and income group. For intake, Dohrman listens to a caller's problems and, after consulting with staff attorneys, suggests ways the group could help. Hearing callers' stories are "really eye-opening," she says, and helping them "makes the experience worthwhile."
Though the summer is just beginning thus far Dohrman, who is going into her third year of law school, has learned not only about legal issues, but also, she says, sees how some of these problems are connected to family dynamics, and lack of community resources.
Dohrman's interest in health care law, especially Medicare and Medicaid issues, brought her to this division of legal aid. She is excited to be learning about new Medicare laws, but the "most rewarding part," she says, is talking with people directly and applying the law to specific issues, to people's needs.
Access Living focuses on discrimination from businesses and government against people with disabilities. Specifically, the group works on landlord-tenant cases, public transportation accessibility, and access to educational programs, such as a child with autism getting kicked out of daycare.
Access Living is divided up into teams (a housing team, a transportation team, for example), and seeks to move "away from a medical model to a rights model," says Schmidt. He is doing research and writing for the civil rights team this summer, and also doing intake work. "I wanted to do work I felt vested in," he says.
Like Dohrman's, Schmidt's job is unpaid, and they both cobbled together summer funding for living expenses from a variety of grants. Schmidt took out a loan to cover some expenses as well. He heard about the Equal Justice Works Summer Corps program through a lecture series at his law school, which included lectures on public interest opportunities.
Flynn will be a second-year at Iowa Law in the fall, and is working at two public interest organizations this summer. He wants to help other people through his legal knowledge, he says, on both a direct and organizational level.
At the Iowa Nonprofit Resource Center, Flynn does research on legal questions submitted by Iowa nonprofits. "I am currently researching issues surrounding the fiduciary duties of nonprofit board members under the Uniform Management of Institutional Funds Act," he says.
At the Iowa clinical law center Flynn serves the clinic's low-income clients directly. Currently, he is working on an employment discrimination case, and helping others with some financial questions. Both jobs "are satisfying in their own way," says Flynn.
Reed, meanwhile, last week started knocking on doors to ask migrant farm workers about possible abuses of their rights from employers. When Reed goes to farm workers' communities in the evenings, she will also give them information on topics such as their eligibility for workers compensation benefits, and the safe way to handle pesticides. If a worker has a claim, she will do the intake. Reed is bilingual and has a background in immigration law. "I am interested in all the issues that effect immigration," she says.
