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For more information about this clinic, please visit the Clinic Website and OCP Blog Highlights.

Enrollment in this clinic will fulfill the HLS JD pro bono requirement.

Required Class Component: Advanced Clinical Practice (1 fall classroom credit + 1 spring classroom credit). This clinic and course are bundled; your enrollment in this clinic will automatically enroll you in the required course.

Additional Co-/Pre-Requisites: Harvard Legal Aid Bureau 2L.

By Permission: Yes. This clinic is only open to students who have completed HLAB in their 2L year.

Add/Drop Deadline: N/A.

LLM Students: LLM students are not eligible to enroll.

Multi-Semester: This is a fall-spring clinic (4 fall clinical credits + 4 spring clinical credits).

Placement Site: HLS.

The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau is a student-run civil legal aid organization composed of approximately 50 second and third year Harvard Law School students who provide free civil legal services to a diverse population of low-income clients in the Greater Boston area. Students are supervised by practicing attorneys with extensive public interest and private practice experience, who train students, accompany them to court, provide strategic advice, and assist in case management. The Bureau specializes in four major areas of practice: housing law, including evictions and housing discrimination; family law, including divorce, child custody, paternity, visitation, support, and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status issues; fair wage law, including nonpayment or underpayment of wages; and government benefits law, including appeals of the denial or termination of unemployment or social security disability benefits. Because the Bureau is student-run, students take the lead in setting organizational policy and exploring potential new areas or modes of practice. Enrollment is by application during the spring of the student’s 1L year; participants commit to at least 20 hours per week of clinic work for the following two academic years.