AOI: Public Interest Law
59 results
Features
Slavery’s Legacy in Architecture and Law
Slavery and the Built Environment, a Problem Solving Initiative class taught by Luis C.deBaca, ’93, examined the historical narrative of monuments in the US, including those with racist legacies. Students in the fall 2022 semester examined the history of Sylvester Manor to better understand how land use and regulation of supply chains have been shaped by slavery and its legacies.
Features
Jeff Titus Celebrates Life (on the) Outside
Titus, a Michigan Innocence Clinic client, was exonerated and released from prison in February. He was convicted in 2002 of killing two deer hunters in a state game area in the southeast corner of Kalamazoo County, Michigan.
@UMICHLAW
Forty Years of Protecting the Great Lakes Watershed and Training Environmental Lawyers
Forty years after its introduction, what is now known as the Environmental Law and Sustainability Clinic continues to provide invaluable hands-on learning experience for students, using litigation and other means of advocacy to advance environmental priorities in the Great Lakes region and beyond.
Class Note Fall 2020
Azadeh Shahshahani: Protecting Immigrant Rights Across the U.S. South
Azadeh Shahshahani, ’04, a prolific writer and speaker on the subject of immigrant rights, was first drawn to Project South because of the organization’s work to combat Islamophobia.
Class Note Fall 2016
Denise Brogan-Kator, ‘06: Fighting in the Trenches for LGBT Equality
Denise Brogan-Kator, ‘06, fought for marriage equality, planning and editing amicus briefs that would help get section three of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) overturned in 2013, which later helped influence the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. But she soon realized that those victories unleashed a different set of problems altogether.
Class Note Spring 2017
Kerene Moore, ’05: Opening the Courthouse Doors to Everyone
When the marriage equality movement started gaining momentum, Kerene Moore, ’05, saw an opportunity to help the LGBT community understand its rights, and to access them. It’s why she helped to create the LGBT Rights Project at the Jim Toy Community Center in Washtenaw County.
Class Note Spring/Summer 2018
Chase Cantrell, ’08: A Force for Positive Change Close to Home
Chase Cantrell, ’08, could have gone many places with a degree from Michigan Law. Instead, he chose to be a force for positive change in his native Detroit.
Class Note Spring/Summer 2018
George Barchini, ’15: Striking a Balance with Big Law and Public Interest
Near the end of a long week in Laredo, Texas, George Barchini pulled an all-nighter—but not for the reasons typical of young associates at Big Law firms. Instead, he was trying to stop the deportation of a Central American woman.
Class Note
Laurence Kahn, ’77: Providing Alternative Crisis Resolution
Laurence Kahn, ’77, has spent his life as an advocate in every sense of the word. Following his earlier experience in government and private practice, Kahn formed a volunteer team to launch Help Now! Advocacy, an all-volunteer nonprofit that specializes in crisis resolution by providing advice and negotiation on matters that fall outside the scope of attorneys or social workers.
In Practice Fall 2022
Litigating Death Row: A Long Road of Loss
For 16 years, Jodi Lopez, ’03, fought to save Matthew Reeves’s life—and twice his life was spared. But the hard-fought victories that Lopez, Ben Friedman, ’13, and others won on Reeves’s behalf were reversed by the US Supreme Court. For Lopez and Friedman, the case raises salient due process questions that warrant examination of and discussion about the American justice system.