Spring Break Pro Bono Trip

By: Jimmy Biblarz J.D. ‘21 The informal slogan I heard from respondents was “Come to Pulaski for vacation, leave on probation.” In Pulaski, Tennessee, private…

By: Alexis Farmer   “I found it very rewarding to be doing work that actually helped people in detention,” said Joseph Tahbaz JD ’20. He…

By: Daniel Oyolu JD ‘21 From left to right: Brian Beaton, JD ’21, Mayor Mayita Meléndez, and Daniel Oyolu JD ’21 When I first learned…

By: Merve Ciplak J.D. ’21 Credit: Lee Mestre As an international student that had never been to the South, my understanding of North Carolina was…

By: Krista Oehlke J.D. ‘20 Credit: Krista Oehlke Most immigrants at the South Texas Detention Center (STDC) in Pearsall, Texas will bide their time, in…

By: Madeline Kane J.D. ‘21 Madeline Kane is the third from left in all black It’s 4:50am, and I’m up before my alarm sounds. The…

By: Alexis Farmer A square block of tires serves as a fortress, protecting the browned soil. It is the only space in the immediate area…

After Hurricane Maria roared over Puerto Rico in September 2017, crippling the island where Natalie Trigo Reyes ’19 grew up and where much of her family still lived, she felt “completely overwhelmed.” Within days, however, she put together an event that raised about $40,000 for relief efforts, collected enough emergency goods to fill three large trucks, and joined Harvard Law Professor Andrew Manuel Crespo ’08 and Lee Mestre of the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs to plan the school’s response to the disaster.

Over Spring Break, I had the opportunity to work with Project Citizenship, a Boston-based organization that exists to help Legal Permanent Residents become United States citizens.  I had an amazing experience that enabled me to jump right into working with clients, including providing direct representation at a USCIS citizenship interview.

From Harvard Gazette—For five days, HLS students helped dozens of people in eight municipalities across the island file appeals with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for disaster relief assistance.

From Christian Science Monitor—From Boy Scouts to Harvard Law, many students from the US mainland are spending vacation time volunteering here: helping to clear debris, navigate FEMA forms, and restore damaged forests.

By Thomas Wolfe, J.D. '19—This spring, I went with the Mississippi Delta Project (MDP) to Clarksdale, Mississippi to work on the issue of lead contamination of municipal water supplies in the Mississippi Delta.

2017 Spring Break Pro Bono Trips—Our enthusiastic team of eight HLS students and one supervising attorney ventured into the state of Queretaro, Mexico to provide free tax services for migrant workers in coordination with Centro de Derechos de Migrante (CDM).

By Brian Klosterboer  J.D. ’16 Five students traveled to Uganda over spring break to work on pending litigation that could advance human rights protections for lesbian,…

By Lydia Mwalimu Adude, LL.M. ’16  They say that the market is flooded with lawyers, but this does not really mean that the field of…

By Edith Sangueza, J.D. ’18 Seen from the outside, the Port Isabel Detention Center (PIDC) is a cheerful coral color, with an asymmetrical glass front.

Via HLS News This March, several teams of HLS students used their Spring Break to work on a number of humanitarian projects, including documenting…