Immigrant Family Legal Clinic
Housed on the campus of the RFK Community Schools, where six public schools serve L.A.'s Koreatown/Pico Union neighborhoods, the Immigrant Family Legal Clinic offers a unique model of legal service delivery and advocacy embedded in a trusted community space.
Información para la Comunidad de RFK Schools / Information for the RFK Schools Community
Read about the clinic's achievements.
Read the clinic's Fall 2024 newsletter.
Our Clinic, Part of the School Community
The only immigration law clinic on a K-12 public school campus in the country, the Immigrant Family Legal Clinic is an innovative model of community lawyering, providing holistic representation and empowering community education and outreach.
Clinic Closeup: Immigrant Family Legal Clinic
Watch this Clinic Closeup Instagram video to learn more about the clinic. In the video, the Clinic Director, Law Student Representative Kaho Maeda, and Clinic Staff Attorney Tiana Cherbosque describe what makes the clinic a special part of the law school experience and a valuable service to the K-12 school community it serves.
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Mission
We prepare lawyers to serve the needs of marginalized communities by connecting law students with immigrant families in the school setting, providing direct representation, holistic services, and advocacy for better policies that will help immigrant families flourish in school and society.
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Overview
The clinic is located at the RFK Community Schools, a pathbreaking complex of six pilot public schools established as a tribute to the social justice legacy of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated on the site (then the Ambassador Hotel) in 1968. The RFK campus includes the UCLA Community School, a K-12 school jointly run by UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies (GSE&IS) and the Los Angeles Unified School District, with a curriculum committed to equity and access for underserved students in the neighborhood.
In the clinic, law students under supervision of expert faculty provide direct representation to immigrant clients including unaccompanied minors, asylum-seeking families and low-wage workers. In addition, through outreach workshops and individual consultations, law students provide information and counseling about immigration and related legal matters to the students, teachers and Koreatown residents.
In the course associated with the clinic, law students develop core lawyering skills, including interviewing, counseling, legal research and writing, and oral advocacy; gain exposure to additional advocacy tools and methods related to community lawyering; and draw on theoretical and interdisciplinary frameworks to contextualize the clinic's casework.
The clinic partners with other local service providers and national advocacy organizations to amplify its impact and bring a broad array of resources to the Koreatown community. Through these partnerships, students in the clinic also engage in policy research and advocacy related to immigrants' rights.