Through the Consumer Protection Clinic, students represent low-income people in cases related to predatory lending and other consumer matters, including bankruptcy and debt collection defense.
This clinic is part of the WilmerHale Legal Services Center (LSC), a general practice community law office in Jamaica Plain. LSC’s diverse clinics provide clinical instruction to second- and third-year law students and serve as a laboratory for the innovative delivery of legal services. Students are taught and mentored under the supervision and guidance of clinical instructors and fellows in one of LSC’s litigation clinical practices. For more information about the LSC, please visit their website.
How to Register
This clinic is offered in the Fall and Spring semesters. You can learn about the required clinical course component, clinical credits and the clinical registration process by reading the course catalog description and exploring the links in this section.
Meet the Instructors
Alexa Rosenbloom
Director, Clinical Instructor, Lecturer on Law
Alexa joined the Legal Services Center as a clinical instructor in the Consumer Protection Clinic in 2022. Prior to coming to LSC, she represented low-income clients at Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS) for over nine years. She began her career at GBLS as a Skadden Fellow practicing disability rights law in the Elder, Health, and Disability Unit. In 2015, Alexa transferred to the Consumer Rights Unit at GBLS; for the next six years she represented low-income consumers in state and federal court in a wide variety of matters, including debt collection and foreclosure defense. Alexa was an Arthur Garfield Hays fellow as a student at NYU Law School, and clerked for a federal magistrate judge in the Eastern District of New York before starting her career as a legal services attorney.
Sean Ahern
Clinical Instructor
Sean Ahern is an attorney and clinical instructor in the Consumer Protection Clinic at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School (LSC). Sean supervises and trains law students in representing low-income clients in a wide range of consumer cases in state and federal court. He works with students to learn all of the different civil litigation strategies involved in the defense of debt collection lawsuits and the bringing of affirmative fair debt collection and consumer protection lawsuits.
Before joining LSC, Sean was a senior attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services and a part-time lecturer at BU Law. Sean also comes to LSC with full-time clinical teaching experience. During the spring and summer 2023 semesters, Sean held a temporary appointment as a full-time lecturer in the Civil Litigation & Justice clinic at Boston University School of Law, where he supervised JD students and co-taught a course in trial advocacy. Sean is experienced as a litigator in a range of legal aid practice areas, including in class action litigation. Sean’s experience and research interest is largely in the intersection between consumer rights and housing. He has also provided civil legal assistance in employment, immigration, and government benefits cases as well.
In the News
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A window into a week at the Legal Services Center
Explore the collective work completed at the WilmerHale Legal Services Center (LSC) during just a single week in November!
December 20, 2024
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Celebrating Clinician Anniversaries
This year, several clinicians are celebrating milestone anniversaries at Harvard Law School. Over 20, 30, even 55 years in the Harvard Law Clinical Programs, these clinicians have provided thousands of hours of crucial pro bono legal service in the Boston community and across the globe, mentored generations of students, and have been trusted and valued
September 24, 2024
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Harvard Law’s Consumer Protection Clinic saves thousands of dollars for Boston residents every year
In a single day last semester, students helped eliminate $10,000 in debt for community members. By Rachel Reed Via Harvard Law Today For many Americans, a surprise expense — a tune-up for the car, a new roof on the house — can throw their finances into a tailspin. For Paul Buchanan, it was an accident
March 7, 2023