Esme Caramello

1L January Experiential Term courses focus on skills-building, collaboration and self-reflection

The [Massachusetts] Supreme Judicial Court has announced the appointment of eight new members to the Access to Justice Commission. They are: H. Esme Caramello of Harvard Law School; Northeastern Housing Court First Justice Fairlie A. Dalton; Sandra M. Gant of the Committee for Public Counsel Services; Richard Johnston of the Attorney General’s Office; Jennifer G. Miller, counsel to the state Senate; Susan K. Nagl of South Coastal Counties Legal Services; Anthony Owens, clerk-magistrate of the Dorchester Division of the Boston Municipal Court; and Nutter partner Mary K. Ryan.

Growing up in the mostly white city of Lethbridge in southern Alberta, Canada, Julian SpearChief-Morris [`18] often felt out of place...But after graduating from a local college and coming to Harvard Law School (HLS), with its diverse student body, SpearChief-Morris felt right at home. And when he was admitted to the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, one of the three honor societies at the School, he found a family. It’s a place that SpearChief-Morris has made his own...He is the first indigenous student to lead the bureau...As the bureau’s president, SpearChief-Morris worked to build bridges with other student organizations on campus. Esme Caramello ’94, J.D.’ 99, the bureau’s faculty director and clinical professor of law, praised him. “Julian is brilliant, organized, and mission-driven,” Caramello said in an email...His leadership is a source of pride for indigenous students at Harvard, said Leilani Doktor [`19], co-president of the Native American Law Students Association. SpearChief-Morris was co-president of the association last year, and during his term made unique contributions, said Doktor. “He spearheaded initiatives to collaborate with other student organizations, build community for native students, and infuse public service into our everyday lives,” she said.

...Initiatives under way at HLS have returned it to a prominent role in advancing legal aid—and in developing new approaches that will change and enhance the delivery of these services in the future. Daniel Nagin, vice dean for experiential and clinical education and faculty director of both the school’s Legal Services Center and its Veterans Legal Clinic, is exploring improvements in legal services that could help bridge the divide between those who insist that lawyers are essential in providing legal services and those who believe they aren’t. Green professor of public law D. James Greiner, faculty director of the Access to Justice Lab, is HLS’s main proponent of the view that sometimes the solutions can be simpler and less expensive...[Martha] Minow emphasized HLS’s mission as a justice school, as much as a law school, by expanding opportunities for public-interest work and by bringing the curriculum and clinical offerings closer together—so theory informs practice and vice versa...Esme Caramello, a clinical professor who is the bureau’s faculty director, told me, “Within five years of graduating from the law school, a lot of students who did HLAB are in public-interest jobs, doing legal services and otherwise. They feel compelled to do this work.”

...Various Harvard departments and Schools have long embraced efforts to help surrounding communities. The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, for instance, has provided free legal representation to poor defendants since 1913...Every year at Harvard Law School (HLS), 50 student attorneys help local residents with legal matters, from child custody to evictions to unemployment problems to Social Security benefits. The students do so through the Legal Aid Bureau, the nation’s oldest student-run organization offering free legal services to residents struggling to make ends meet. The students commit to at least 20 hours of work per week during two years, and handled 300 cases last year. The bureau, which is funded by Harvard, is the second-largest provider of free civic legal aid locally, after the nonprofit Greater Boston Legal Services. “It’s really like having 50 full-time lawyers that Harvard is contributing to civic legal aid per year,” said Esme Caramello, clinical professor of law and the bureau’s deputy director. The bureau strives to mirror the community it serves. The participating students select the next class of student lawyers, and they promote diversity because it encourages inclusion, said Amanda Morejon, current president of the bureau. Morejon graduated from the College in 2013 and will receive her degree from the Law School in May. “We don’t want to be so far removed from our clients,” said Morejon. “Our clients are a racially and ethnically diverse population, all low-income. I had a client who was a Hispanic woman, and my being a Hispanic woman was extremely important to her.”