BLF’s December 2012 newsletter has been published, which includes updates on new BLF fellow Sebastian Sanchez, 2011-2012 BLF fellow Lydia Edwards, the 2012 BLF Auction, and recent additions to the BLF Board.
Read the full newsletter!
News
New BLF-EBCLC Joint Fellowship Announced!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, MONDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2012
Contacts:
Tirien Steinbach
(510) 548–4040
tsteinbach@ebclc.org
Holly Baldwin
(510) 682-8683
berkeleylawfoundation@yahoo.com
Back to Its Roots: the East Bay Community Law Center Partners with the Berkeley Law Foundation for a Joint Fellowship
New In-House EBCLC Fellowship Will Plant Seeds for Next Crop of Advocates and Legal Educators
To celebrate 25 years of justice through education and advocacy, the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC) is partnering with its original seed funder, the Berkeley Law Foundation, to create an in-house, two-year joint fellowship for a UC Berkeley Law graduate to develop a program at EBCLC.
Each year, the Berkeley Law Foundation (BLF) awards one or two one-year grants to support public interest fellowships. However, this year, in celebration of EBCLC’s 25th Anniversary, BLF is targeting its seed funding to support the first year of a permanent fellowship housed at EBCLC. In 2014, BLF will resume its traditional fellowship program.
“BLF took a leap of faith with our proposal twenty five years ago,” recounts Brad Adams, who received a BLF grant to help EBCLC open its doors in 1988. “Whereas BLF normally granted funding to students working at established organizations, BLF decided that the Berkeley Community Law Center (BCLC) – as it was called then – was a crucial element that had been lacking at a world-class law school like Boalt Hall.” He concludes, “Without it, BCLC would not have been possible. BLF took a chance at a time when no one else would.”
In 2002, EBCLC’s current Executive Director, Tirien Steinbach (Berkeley Law ’99) received a second BLF grant to cultivate a new program focused on the intersection of criminal and civil law for marginalized members of the East Bay. EBCLC’s flourishing Clean Slate practice is now being replicated in counties across the state.
Of the joint fellowship, Steinbach remarks, “BLF fostered my commitment to public interest throughout law school and helped launch my career as a social justice lawyer at EBCLC. It is fabulous to partner with BLF again to support homegrown public interest lawyers and leaders.”
For BLF, partnering with EBCLC on the 25th Anniversary fellowship is an exciting opportunity to strengthen the deeply rooted connection between two organizations with common history and missions. “Both BLF and EBCLC were started by Berkeley Law students committed to social justice, and offer law students a chance to use their legal skills to increase legal access and empower marginalized communities,” says Holly Baldwin, BLF Board President, “It’s great for BLF and EBCLC to unite once again and celebrate our shared roots.”
The 25th Anniversary joint fellowship marks a celebration of EBCLC’s continued cultivation of justice. As it becomes self-sustained – independent from scarce resources, the fellowship is bound to become the fertile ground upon which the next generation of legal advocates and educators grows and flourishes. The Request for Proposals is available here.
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The East Bay Community Law Center provides free legal services to eligible East Bay clients. Since its founding in 1988 by law students at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, EBCLC has become the largest provider of free legal services in the East Bay. To learn more about EBCLC, go to http://www.ebclc.org.
The Berkeley Law Foundation funds public interest law through summer grants for current Boalt students and year-long grants for law graduates and new attorneys from around the country. BLF’s grants enable the recipients to work on innovative and critical projects that provide desperately needed legal services to communities all around the nation. To learn more about BLF, go to http://www.berkeleylawfoundation.org.
2011-2012 BLF Fellow Lydia Edwards Honored with Award of Distinction
The Berger-Marks Foundation has announced it will award 2011-2012 BLF Fellow Lydia Edwards with an Award of Distinction for her work on behalf Brazilian domestic workers. The awards honor women age 35 or younger who have already distinguished themselves as leaders of the social justice movement. Lydia will be presented with the award on Wednesday, November 14, 2012 at the National Press Club.
The Berger-Marks Foundation was created by bequest of Broadway composer Gerald Marks (“All of Me”) in honor of his wife, Edna Berger, who rose from being a receptionist to the first woman organizer of The Newspaper Guild. The official press release announcing the award recipients can be found here.
SAVE THE DATE – 2012 BLF Auction!
Save the date for the 2012 Berkeley Law Foundation Auction! The Auction will be held on Friday November 9, 2012 at HS Lordships in the Berkeley Marina. The Auction is the primary fundraiser for the Phoenix Fellowship, a scholarship that provides significant financial support to first-year Berkeley Law students from diverse backgrounds who are committed to pursuing careers in social justice.
Student volunteers are busily soliciting and collecting donations. For information on how to donate or purchase tickets, please contact the student leadership team directly at berkeleylawfoundation@gmail.com. This year we are excited to add an online auction that will run in advance of the physical event – allowing all BLF supporters to bid on certain items. A link to the online auction will be posted here in late October.
Click here for more general information about the Auction Gala!
BLF Fellow Lydia Edwards Speaks About Her Domestic Worker Project
On July 18, 2012. BLF 2011-2012 fellow Lydia Edwards appeared on the Boston Neighborhood Network to discuss her work on behalf of domestic workers in Massachusetts. Lydia discussed her Domestic Worker Law and Policy Clinic, her manual for domestic workers, and her domestic worker mediation project.
You can see video of Lydia’s appearance here.
2012-2013 BLF Fellow Sebastian Sanchez to Advocate for Car Wash Workers in New York City
Sebastian Sanchez has been awarded BLF’s post-graduate fellowship for the 2012-2013 year. Mr. Sanchez is a 2012 graduate of the Seton Hall Law School, where he was a Center for Social Justice Scholar for the Urban Revitalization Project. Sebastian has worked as an immigration paralegal with the New York Legal Assistance Group in New York, served as an interpreter for community groups like Domestic Workers United and the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, and helped to develop an emergency hot-line for immigrants facing immigration raids in New Jersey.
As a scholar at the Center for Social Justice, Sebastian developed and presented know-your-rights presentations on immigration, mortgage-fraud, and tenants’ rights. He also helped draft briefs on education law issues, challenging the reduction in State funding to public schools in New Jersey, and State control of the Newark public school district. He focused his summer work on the experience of immigrant workers, working at Make the Road New York (MRNY) and the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Center, organizations with extensive histories combating exploitative working conditions, particularly in low-wage and immigrant communities.
As a fellow, Sebastian will return to MRNY, a unique organization that empowers Latino and working class communities, through organizing, policy innovation, education, and direct services. Sebastian will join the legal team at MRNY to help pilot a new initiative to provide legal advocacy, community education, and policy support to the car wash worker community in New York, a population that suffers rampant wage theft and abuse.
Sebastian will work closely with organizers to reach out to workers, identify wage theft, and develop strategies and responses. The campaign will provide direct services to car wash workers in matters of wage theft, workers’ compensation or other legal issues that may arise in relation to their employment. While working to recover unpaid wages through negotiation and litigation, the project will also pursue other methods to promote a substantial and sustainable impact that improves the car wash industry as a whole. Sebastian will help to develop know-your-rights seminars for workers and draft legislation to improve regulation of the industry. Sebastian will work with local community groups and unions, like New York Communities for Change and the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, to develop broad structural support for the workers in this community. Launching this industry-focused project represents a new strategy for MRNY, and will be made possible with Sebastian as a dedicated fellow to help develop and run this pilot project.
BLF Fellow Lydia Edwards Secures Grant for Domestic Worker Mediation Project
BLF’s 2011-2012 Fellow Lydia Edwards, who is working at the Brazilian Immigrant Center in Allston, MA, recently secured a grant from the Miller Foundation to support her Domestic Worker Mediation Project. The grant will pay for the training of domestic workers and progressive employers in the co-mediation model to help mediate workplace disputes between domestic workers and the families who they work for. One of the goals of the project is to build capacity and worker leaders who will be able to one day teach mediation to other workers in a number of different languages, including Haitian, Creole, Spanish and Portuguese.
Lydia is also working with nine clients, drafting contracts for live-in domestic workers, and giving workshops at churches and other local organizations. She is also working to organize the first annual Massachusetts Coalition for Domestic Workers convention this spring which will bring together domestic workers from around the state to get their leadership and input on a local campaign for a domestic workers bill of rights and a national campaign to provide a pathway to citizenship and fill the care gap.
BLF Phoenix Fellow Yanin Senachai Awarded Skadden Fellowship
Congratulations to BLF Phoenix Fellow Yanin Senachai, who has earned a 2012-2014 Skadden Fellowship. Yanin, who will be graduating from Berkeley Law in spring 2012, will be working at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center representing trafficked and exploited Thai low wage workers. Congratulations Yanin!
BLF Fellow Daniel Redman Co-Authors Guide for LGBT Elders
2010-2011 BLF Fellow Daniel Redman recently completed his year-long fellowship, and was a lead author of a pioneering new guide for LGBT elders published by the National Center for Lesbian Rights in December 2011. The guide, called “Navigating the System: A Know-Your-Rights Guide for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Elders in California”—is designed as a resource to empower and help protect California’s LGBT elders who often are targets of discrimination due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. Congratulations to Daniel for his excellent work!
2011 BLF Auction Raises Money for Phoenix Fellowship
The Berkeley Law Foundation is pleased to announce that our 16th Annual Auction Extravanganza on November 11, 2011 raised approximately $41,000 for the Phoenix Fellowships, which will be awarded to incoming 1Ls from diverse backgrounds with an extraordinary commitment to social justice. We are grateful for the tremendous generosity of Boalt faculty, students, firm sponsors and community donors for the making the Auction a success!
The full program is available here. Thanks especially to our auction sponsors for their generous commitment to the work of BLF and the Phoenix Fellowship:
CHAMPION OF DIVERSITY
Crowell & Moring, LLP
Kirkland & Ellis, LLP
GUARDIAN OF DIVERSITY
Hanson Bridgett
Leonard Carder, LLP
Rosen, Bien & Galvan, LLP
Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP
ADVOCATE OF DIVERSITY
Goodwin Procter, LLP
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, LLP
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP
Rutan & Tucker, LLP
SUPPORTER OF DIVERSITY
Alston + Bird, LLP
Debevoise & Plimpton, LLP
Nixon Peabody, LLP
Sullivan & Cromwell, LLP
Berkeley Law Foundation 