NESL Faculty Active in Public Interest and Public Service Legal Work

By Professor Russell Engler, Clinic Director

NESL faculty members have engaged in a wide range of pro bono, public service and public interest legal work throughout their careers. The faculty underscored its dedication to public service legal work in the Fall of 2000, when it created NESL's Center for Law and Social Responsibility (CLSR). The faculty created the CLSR in part to assist in the school's efforts to perform "public service and other work that furthers the interest of justice." Thirteen NESL faculty members currently are associated with the school's new Center, and their work reveals an impressive array of past and current public service legal work.

Professor David Siegel's work illustrates the manner in which faculty members can utilize an integrated approach to their teaching, scholarship and pro bono work. Professor Siegel handles pro bono cases in the area of criminal law, one of his core teaching areas. Along with members of a large Boston law firm, Professor Siegel has represented an inmate since 1999 who sought DNA testing of evidence in his case, to pursue his claim of wrongful conviction. Professor Siegel also has participated in developing the New England Innocence Project (NEIP) along with four other law schools and over a dozen outside lawyers. He has secured opportunities for NESL students to assist lawyers handling NEIP cases at a major law firm. He also serves as faculty advisor to the New England Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement, whose members not only publish the Journal, but also sponsor a Prison Outreach Program. Professor Siegel's research interests include indigent defense and mental health. Students in his Mental Health Issues in the Criminal Process seminar perform research and writing on projects arising from practitioners in the field. Professor Siegel is Co-Director of the CLSR and Director of the CLSR's Criminal Justice Project. Before joining NESL, he was a senior assistant public defender in the Office of the Metropolitan Public Defender in Nashville, TN.

Professors Judi Greenberg and Peter Manus also have integrated public service legal work into their course work, scholarship and pro bono activities. Professor Greenberg's courses include Domestic Violence, Family Law, and Women and the Law, through which student work at times includes projects in conjunction with practicing attorneys. She is the author of articles on feminist jurisprudence, and race and legal education, and is coauthor of Frug's Women and the Law, originally by Mary Joe Frug, late Professor of Law at New England. While at NESL, Professor Greenberg has performed volunteer work for Greater Boston Legal Services and is the Director of the CLSR's Domestic Violence Project. Before joining NESL, she was project director and staff attorney for the Center for Public Representation in Madison, WI.

Professor Manus has assisted community organizations in the development of environmental justice policy, and in their collecting of law and data related to environmental justice. He involves students in this work through his Environmental Justice seminar, where students perform research and drafting on topics arising from these projects. Professor Manus' articles in the field of environmental law have addressed social justice issues. He is Co-Director of the CLSR, and Director of the CSLR's Environmental Justice Project. Before joining NESL, he was an associate at the law firm of Goodwin, Procter & Hoar, in Boston, where he worked on various environmental law pro bono projects.

Other NESL faculty associated with the Center have current and past public interest and pro bono experience as well. Assistant Professor Joelle Moreno is director of the Center's Science and Law Project. Her research interests include the relationship between law and science, sexual predators, and self-defense and abused children. She previously worked for the King's County (Brooklyn, NY) District Attorney's Office, and after graduating law school she practiced civil litigation and then prosecuted criminal cases in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Professor Barbara Plumeri is Vice President of Friends of CASA, Inc., a non-profit organization that provides funding and material support for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs). CASA's are trained community volunteers who advocate for a safe and permanent home on behalf of thousands of children in Boston's foster care system, and the CASA program provides an outstanding volunteer opportunity for NESL students. Before entering the law, Professor Plumeri taught hearing impaired students and later trained both graduate students and public and private school personnel in mainstreaming hearing impaired students.

Before joining NESL, Professor Davalene Cooper was a staff attorney at the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund of Kentucky, Inc., and an attorney fellow at the National Consumer Law Center; her principal research interests include Restorative Justice. Professor Allison Dussias' courses include American Indian Law and Indigenous Peoples' Rights, and she has written articles on American Indian law, addressing such topics as religious freedom, property rights, and tribal sovereignty. Professor Curt Nyquist helped develop NESL's Charles Hamilton Houston Enrichment Program, and has worked closely with the program since its inception. He also recently published his article Using Students as Discussion Leaders on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues in First-Year Courses.

The faculty's public interest experience extends into the Dean's Office. Associate Dean Phil Hamilton was NESL's Clinical Director from 1981 to 1988. Before joining NESL, he worked at Cambridge & Somerville Legal Services, Inc., as a staff attorney and chief counsel. He currently is a Board Member of Greater Boston Legal Services, and serves on the Boston Bar Foundation IOLTA grants committee, which awards grants for legal services work. Associate Dean Paul Teich began his legal career as a staff attorney at the Washtenaw County (Michigan) Legal Aid Society, and later worked for the University of Michigan Student Legal Services.

The work of the clinical faculty is entirely within the realm of public interest law. Professors Barbara Oro and Ilene Klein are the supervising attorneys at NESL's Clinical Law Office, the school's in-house clinic, where they supervise NESL students representing indigent clients in civil cases. Both Professors volunteer at the Probate and Family Court's Lawyer-for-the-Day program, taking students with them to provide advice and assistance to litigants without counsel. Before joining NESL, Professor Klein worked for Legal Services for Cape Cod and Islands, Inc.; the Area Agency on Aging in Fairmont, WV; and the North Central West Virginia Legal Aid Society. Professor Oro worked as a Bar Advocate in Suffolk County (Massachusetts) representing indigent defendants. Professor Oro serves as the main lawyer for a Legal Clinic at Alternative House, a battered women's outreach program in Lowell, MA. Professor Oro handles pro bono family law cases, and is a member of the Family Law Task Force, a statewide coalition of legal services lawyers providing representation for indigent clients in the area of family.

As Clinical Director, I direct the school's Clinical Law Office, and also arrange for NESL students to obtain clinical placements in a wide variety of public interest settings, including criminal and civil placements in which students represent indigent clients and work in government. I teach the Lawyering Process, and have created the new Public Interest Law Seminar and Clinic course, to be offered for the first time in the Fall of 2002. I work closely with legal services offices in Massachusetts on a variety of legal issues affecting the poor, including issues facing unrepresented litigants in the courts, a topic on which I have published two law review articles. Before joining the NESL faculty, I worked for 9 years as a staff attorney and later director of the Housing Law Unit at Brooklyn (NY) Legal Services.

NESL, through the new Center, remains committed to supporting and increasing public service legal work among faculty, students and alumni. Students interested in learning more about the work of NESL faculty described in this article should contact the various members of the faculty associated with the Center. Students seeking more information about public interest law generally may contact either Professor Siegel (dsiegel@faculty.nesl.edu) or me (rengler@faculty.nesl.edu). Information about NESL's Center for Law and Social Responsibility, as well as public service work generally at our school, is available at http://www.nesl.edu/clsr/.