Predatory Lending/Consumer Protection Clinic (WilmerHale Legal Services Center)

Toby Merrill '11, founder and director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending, has been named to the first-ever TIME 100 Next list, an expansion of the TIME 100 list of the most influential people in the world.

At a recent Harvard Law School Library book event, Martha Minow and panelists discussed her recent release, "When Should Law Forgive?", which explores the complicated intersection of the law, justice, and forgiveness.

An HLS project is fighting on behalf of thousands whose lives have been upended by predatory student lending.

On April 5, Harvard Law School's Legal Services Center celebrated its 40th Anniversary of training more than 4,000 attorneys and law students and providing pro bono civil legal services to thousands of Greater Boston’s most vulnerable residents.

More than 100 years after students started the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, there are now 40 clinics and Student Practice Organizations at HLS, focused on everything from cyberlaw to veterans’ rights.

A class action lawsuit has given two Harvard Law students the chance to help frame both the legal and media strategies against a lucrative telephone company contract that exploits inmates while enriching the coffers of a county sheriff. 

On Jan. 3, Harvard Law School's Project on Predatory Student Lending filed a 7.3 billion dollar class action lawsuit in the bankruptcy proceedings of ITT Tech -- one of the country’s largest for-profit college chains -- on behalf of a proposed class of hundreds of thousands of former students.

Many for-profit colleges, which get the overwhelming majority of their revenues from federal financial aid programs, rely on high-pressure tactics and false employment and salary guarantees to lure students into taking out loans. Now, through the efforts of Harvard Law School alum Toby Merrill ’11, some of the victims of these practices can get free legal aid to enforce their rights.

The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and two HLS clinics help staunch the foreclosure crisis in Massachusetts.

There are now 16 clinics at HLS, enabling students to do fieldwork at home and abroad. Here are stories from three of them, taking students inside inner cities and inner sanctums.