Around the country, juvenile defense lawyers and law students have begun to challenge this billing system, arguing that it is akin to taxing parents for their child’s loss of liberty.[…]In California, grassroots activists teamed up with lawyers at the East Bay Community Law Center in Berkeley to bar the imposition of the fees in several counties.
Dana Lueck-Mammen ’19 and Trevor Kosmo ’19 recently won the annual Continuing Education of the Bar (CEB) Award for Excellence in Legal Research and Writing at Berkeley Law. During a luncheon ceremony, each received a framed certificate and a $2,500 check from Stephanie Walker, CEB’s Product Strategy and Innovation Manager.
Salma Mayorquin, an undocumented campus senior and DACA recipient, said in an email that she visited the East Bay Community Law Center’s office hours on campus to get assistance with her renewal application.
On Tuesday, Hardy attended a rally in front of City Hall, where about 40 tenants rights groups and renters demanded that the city take action to close 10 loopholes in Oakland’s renter-protection laws. They said those gaps allow unscrupulous owners to hike rents and displace low- and middle-income tenants.
States have trapped millions of Americans in crippling debt by taking away their driver’s licenses. Can the damage be undone?[…]“As the amount of uncollected court debt increases and more driver’s licenses are suspended, everybody loses. The state Legislature loses, the counties lose, employers lose, our clients lose the most,” Theresa Zhen, who works at the East Bay Community Law Center in Oakland, California, told me before the state’s bill passed.
“Our clients are routinely denied jobs and licenses based on non-conviction arrests,” said Sarah Crowley, Director of the Clean Slate Practice at the East Bay Community Law Center. “This bill’s expanded sealing remedy will help ensure that people are not penalized for criminal justice contacts that have no bearing on their ability or character.”
SB 298, by Sen. Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont), would automatically exempt up to $2,250 per debtor from bank levies — that’s when a judge gives a creditor approval to seize money from an account. More than 100,000 bank levies are served every year statewide, according to research by the East Bay Community Law Center.
Raheem.ai anonymizes all the data it collects so users can be as candid as they like without fear of retaliation. The start-up plans to publish quarterly reports showing where police are working well or failing communities across the U.S. […] The company launched the chatbot in 2017 and is currently testing it out with the East Bay Community Law Center in Berkeley, California, and police departments in cities that Anderson did not yet have permission to name.
Student opportunities routinely translate into meaningful change for disadvantaged area individuals and communities. A few recent highlights: […] Students and lawyers at the East Bay Community Law Center identify clients’ complex educational needs that schools often fail to address, consult with teachers and administrators, and appear in court. In doing so, they are redefining youth advocacy while keeping young people in school and out of the juvenile justice system.
While they hail from different countries, DACA students share common tales of parents migrating to the United States to escape poverty, persecution, human rights violations, and armed conflict in pursuit of economic and educational opportunity. Chemerinsky said Berkeley Law will make available knowledgeable counselors for those who need them and work with campus and the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC) “to help facilitate representation where that is needed.”
