A new clinic at UCLA School of Law will give students the opportunity to provide meaningful, on-the-ground legal assistance to residents of greater Los Angeles who are housing insecure.

The inaugural director of the Housing Justice Clinic is Matthew Nickell, a civil rights and legal aid attorney who joins the law school from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked in the Special Litigation Section.

The clinic will work with and embed students in communities that have the most significant housing needs. It will teach students how to use litigation and other advocacy tools to protect people in vulnerable communities from losing their homes and to empower tenant unions and other community groups to prevent displacement and increase housing opportunities in Los Angeles.

Students will gain valuable litigation skills by defending tenants in fast-moving eviction cases. At the same time, students will learn how to promote goals beyond individual lawsuits through close cooperation with organizers and other partners under a community-lawyering model. They will amass experience using legal tools in the service of broader movement aims and learn to reflect critically on the role of lawyers in campaigns to effect social change.

Students will start working in the clinic during the Spring 2026 semester.

“The time and place are right for UCLA to launch its new Housing Justice Clinic,” Nickell says. “The housing crisis has hit Los Angeles hard, and the university has the clout and standing to protect and preserve housing for vulnerable individuals and families by working hand-in-hand with our community partners. UCLA Law students are hungry for opportunities to make a difference, and they have the intelligence and passion critical to make housing justice a reality while growing into outstanding lawyers and advocates.”

Nickell began his career in legal aid, working as a housing attorney for Greater Boston Legal Services. There, he collaborated with community organizers to fight building clear-outs and halt displacement in vulnerable Boston neighborhoods where corporate landlords were buying up properties, raising rents, and pushing out longtime tenants. He also served as a licensed student attorney in the renowned Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.

Most recently, at the Justice Department, he fought discrimination and protected people's civil rights in matters ranging from disability rights and fair housing to the conditions of confinement for incarcerated persons. His cases included a lawsuit against the City of Hesperia and San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department alleging that they enacted and used a crime-free rental housing ordinance to drive people of color out of the city.

Nickell received his B.A. from UC Berkeley and J.D. from Harvard Law School.