Northwestern Law Class of 2019 Public Service Stars on Their Most Impactful Pro Bono Experience
During the 2018–2019 academic year, Paladin had the privilege of helping students from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law manage their pro bono work. We were blown away by their incredible engagement and asked a few of Northwestern’s Class of 2019 Public Service Stars about their most impactful pro bono experience:
Post Army Deployment, Assisting an Afghan Interpreter with a Visa Application:
The most impactful pro bono project I worked on, and continue to work on, is a Special Immigration Visa (SIV) case. During one of my deployments in the Army, I worked closely with an Afghan who served as an interpreter, intelligence gatherer, and a procurer of local supplies. Because of his close working relationship with myself and other U.S. forces, he received and continues to receive death threats against him and his family. On two occasions, he suffered harm from physical attacks. After relocating his family for their safety, he contacted me to help with his SIV application. Shortly thereafter, I contacted my Congressional representatives, fellow service members, colleagues in the Northwestern community, and the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) for assistance. Ever since, I’ve worked closely with him and his IRAP counsel.
— Michael Bassi
Helping Survivors of Domestic Violence Gain Protection:
I would go over to the Domestic Violence Legal Clinic every Thursday and spend the day helping with intake by drafting affidavits for the clients or taking the clients up to court. I had a different client every time I was there so the outcome was different every time. Although some cases were more complicated and exhausting, being able to help women who had been abused get protection made it worth it at the end of the day.
— Luz Solano-Flórez
Winning a Petition for Certiorari for a Death Row Inmate:
I drafted a petition for certiorari for our client, currently on death row in Kansas after having been denied the opportunity to present a meaningful insanity defense at trial. Our petition was granted — the Court grants fewer than 1% of petitions — and I then spent most of the spring semester working on the merits brief. It has been incredibly meaningful to work on this case as it has progressed from idea to petition to merits to argument. I hope that we’ll win, but even if we don’t, the opportunity to fight for a critical constitutional right is the kind of thing that people dream of becoming a lawyer to do.
— Meredith McBride
Researching and Writing for the Mississippi Center for Justice:
In 2018, I spent my spring break working with the Mississippi Center for Justice in Jackson, MS. The organization advocates for under-served communities in the state and provides direct legal services related to health, economic welfare, education, and civil rights. I helped the organization develop marketing materials to inform its nonprofit partners about available educational grants, researched the lineage of a client’s family in order to determine the rightful ownership of a plot of land that had been passed down over the years, and outlined the process for ensuring that future clients understand how to properly transfer land during life and at death. I am extremely interested in the estate planning field, so it was serendipitous to get such an assignment. And given that both sides of my family are from Mississippi, my work with the organization meant all the more to me.
— Kimberley Harris
