COMMUNITY LAW PROJECT

For California Western’s Community Law Project, a clinic that provides advice and resources to low-income members of the San Diego community while also providing students with the opportunity to work one-on-one with clients within a variety of legal areas, 2022 was truly a year of returning to its roots. The CLP corps of law students, undergraduate students, and volunteer attorneys volunteered over 3,000 hours of their time, which in turn allowed CLP to host 140 free live legal clinics in the community and provide 14 legal education presentations. During a time when many other organizations struggled to return to a live service model, CLP’s ability to return to their mission of literally “meeting clients where they are” is one that our California Western community can take pride in.

CLP’s successes over this past year were plentiful and varied. Among other things, our students were able to provide guidance to a victim of sexual harassment who is now on her way to holding her employer liable for the unlawful behavior he allowed to permeate throughout the workplace, engage an excited group of high school students in a lesson on legal issue spotting, and perhaps most importantly, observe their own emotional and intellectual growth as they learned how to effectively work with vulnerable community members. CLP’s recognition as Nonprofit of the Year for California Assembly District 78 was merely icing on the cake to a year full of successes. The Community Law Project remains excited about the prospects to come and welcomes the continued support from our law school alumni community as we strive to improve and grow as an organization.

For more information about CLP or how to become involved in their efforts, please contact Associate Clinical Professor Dana Sisitsky at dsisitsky@cwsl.edu