A Warm Welcome to the New Clinicians

The Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs extends a warm welcome to Clinical Instructors Larisa Bowman (Harvard Legal Aid Bureau) and Marea Parker (Transactional Law Clinics) as well as Associate Samuel Straus (Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program).

Before joining the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, Larisa Bowman supervised students in landlord/tenant cases at the Stanford Community Law Clinic, where she once was a student herself.  She was also a housing staff attorney at Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, California. Before that, Larisa spent two years as a Skadden Fellow at the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County in Redwood City, California, providing representation to tenants in foreclosed properties. Immediately after law school, she completed judicial clerkships with the Honorable William G. Young of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts and the Honorable Ralph D. Gants of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.  Larisa is a graduate of Stanford Law School (J.D. ’09) and Brown University (B.A. ’03).

Marea Parker joined the Transactional Clinics as a Clinical Instructor. Previously, she worked as Assistant General Counsel for Urban America, L.P. and as counsel for Urban America Advisors, LLC in the area of real estate investment management. Her professional practice has focused on corporate law, corporate finance, securities and real estate finance and she has worked for large firms such as Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom and Cahill Gordon & Reindel. Marea holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School, a M.S. in Historic Preservation from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame.

Samuel Straus will be working with HNMCP Director Prof. Robert Bordone ‘97 to expand Harvard Law School’s capacity to train students in skills of facilitation and dialogue. In addition, he will be helping lay the groundwork for a larger initiative that HNMCP hopes to build related to political dialogue at the community, state, and federal level. As part of his work, Sam will help develop teaching materials, design curricula, and identify sources of financial support to grow the initiative and keep it sustainable over time. Sam has served as a co-facilitator and consultant for the Harvard Negotiation Institute, which provides negotiation workshops for attorneys, business executives, and alternative dispute resolution professionals. He has also served as a Teaching Assistant for the Harvard Law School Negotiation Workshop, an intensive semester-long workshop for Harvard graduate students.