Read about the the twelve Iowa law students’ activities during their Alternative Spring Break in Des Moines here, see page 25.
This is a great opportunity to help with the important immigrant’s rights work that the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights is doing, and to build your resume with legal experience over the summer. The full details about this opportunity are available here. Please email linda-mcguire@uiowa.edu with any questions, or to apply today!
A reminder that you must log your Boyd Service Hours from this past month by May 7th at Midnight. Go to the Boyd Service Award website to enter your hours. If you have any questions, please email Jordan Moody at law-boydservice@iowa.uiowa.edu
If you are interested in immigrants’ rights or looking for a legal pro bono opportunity over the summer, then apply now to work for the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights! If you would like to apply, please email Dean Linda McGuire at linda-mcguire@uiowa.edu with a statement of interest and your availability (which dates for the summer and how many hours per week). The deadline to apply is May 17, and the chosen candidate will be notified the week of May 21. Also, students enrolled full time in summer school may count these summer volunteer hours for the Boyd Service Award.
This summer, one law student will be chosen to support the UICHR’s advocacy of immigrants’ rights by working on the Know Your Rights Manual project. UICHR is developing this manual for detained immigrants so that they will be more informed about and be prepared for the immigration adjudication system, which most go through without the help of an attorney. The student work will consist of researching fine points of state and federal immigration procedure and editing the final draft of the manual for publication. The student will also assist with the process of distributing the manual and presenting the information from the manual to immigrants in detention facilities across Iowa. The student will develop a Know Your Rights presentation that synthesizes key points from the manual in an accessible format.
Qualifications:
Take a moment to peruse our student volunteers’ enormous achievements on the colorful posters hanging from the boards across from Financial Aid. The posters represent
the diverse projects and activities Iowa law students have engaged in during the past year, including the number of volunteers and number of hours committed per project. Projects range from pro bono activities such as Kids First and the Iowa Legal Aid Divorce Clinic to Alternative Spring Break trips in Austin, New Orleans, Chicago, and Des Moines—for more than 4,000 combined hours!
The College of Law and the community as a whole give their sincerest thanks and congratulations to the College of Law’s outstanding students and the invaluable contribution they have made toward improving our community.
Over the last two Spring Breaks, Iowa law students have volunteered with the Workers Defense Project in Austin, TX helping undocumented workers achieve justice.
How are Texas construction companies getting around the law and exploiting undocumented labor? One landscaping business owner, Trent, says:
“I don’t pay anyone by the hour. In fact, I treat the guys that work on my crew as subcontractors — they are self-employed,” he says.
This is a key distinction. If Trent were to classify his workers as employees, he’d have to pay taxes, Social Security, unemployment and overtime. But by saying his workers are actually independent contractors — in essence, business owners — he’s off the hook.”
To read more, check out this NPR article.
All College of Law students are invited to participate in the North Liberty Community Pantry Golf Outing on Friday, May 10th at Saddleback Ridge Golf Course in Solon. This is a great way to unwind after finals and support the community at the same time!
For registration information visit here.
The Skadden Fellowship Program was established in 1988 to help graduating law students provide legal services to the poor, the elderly, the homeless and the disabled, as well as those deprived of their civil or human rights. Fellowships are awarded for two years to graduating law students who create their own projects in coordination with public interest organizations. Skadden provides each Fellow with a salary and pays all fringe benefits to which an employee of the sponsoring organization would be entitled. For those Fellows not covered by a law school low income protection plan, the firm will pay a Fellow’s law school debt service for the tuition part of the loan for the duration of the fellowship.
On April 11th, Career Services hosted a discussion on Public Interest Fellowships. As many of you know, immediately upon graduating from Yale Law School, Professor Richardson was a Skadden Arps Public Interest Fellow. She spent the first year of her fellowship with the Legal Aid Society’s Immigration Unit in Brooklyn, NY and the second year with the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles, CA. If you missed this program, it is available to watch on the CVS system.
