“…..Without access to quality representation there is no justice.” -Justice Antonin Scalia, on the 40th anniversary of the Legal Services Corporation
Another success of our students and faculty! This past week our C|M|Law Civil Litigation Clinic, directed by Professor Kenneth Kowalskiand Professor Doron Kalir, scored an important victory in the Ohio Court of Appeals, Eighth District.
Our excellent Civil Litigation Clinic often represents individuals, on a pro bono basis, who cannot afford legal advice. We represented a single mother who appeared pro se in Cleveland Housing Court claiming her landlord management company wronged her. She had a storage unit in her residential building, and one day all of her belongings disappeared. Management had erroneously cleaned out her unit. She prevailed in the Housing Court, and the company appealed.
Jordan Norris, a 3rd year student, argued the case successfully before the Court of Appeals. Brian Reo, another clinical student, helped in the first stages of the case, and several other students also worked on this project. Professor Kowalski and Professor Carolyn Broering-Jacobshelped Jordan prepare for the argument.
Last Thursday, the Ohio Court of Appeals accepted our arguments in full, and we won decisively!
Here is part of an email Professor Kalir received from our client moments after he broke the good news to her:
"Words can’t begin to express how thankful I am to you and your team for the amazing work/effort/time that you put forth to see that I came out victorious in this case. This case has been very stressful over the last 20 months. And once I saw that they'd filed an appeal, I was at my wits end with the legal battle with this leasing company and ready to give up and just take the "loss of my property" and move on. That was until you reached out to help me, that is what gave me the energy to get back in the fight and I truly appreciate that. I am relieved that this is finally over and I hope that they've learned a valuable lesson and will change their procedure to ensure that no one else has to go through what I did."
Our C|M|Law Clinics consist of three Clinics - Civil Litigation, Community Advocacy Law (directed by Professor Pamela Daiker-Middaugh),and Transactional Law (directed by Professor Carole Heyward), as well as our new, first-of-its-kind in the nation Pop-Up Clinics program(directed by Professor Broering-Jacobs and Associate Dean and Professor Michael Borden). In each of our clinics, our students have the opportunity to apply what they learn in the classroom to work in service of actual clients with real world problems.
We are training many of our students to be advocates for those whose interests are too frequently disregarded and to act as their voice, their counselor, and their champion. So it’s particularly important that we also support and advocate for the work of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), the largest funder of civil legal aid in our nation. Unfortunately, their federal funding is in serious jeopardy. I recently signed a letter with over 160 law school deans urging Congress to maintain funding for the LSC.http://www.stthomas.edu/media/schooloflaw/pdf/lawdeanslettertoCongress.pdf
We noted that the LSC has long received bipartisan support, and the loss of LSC funds would devastate efforts to provide access to essential legalservices for millions of low-income Americans who could not otherwise afford legal representation. Our C|M|Law Clinics and Externship Programregularly collaborate with organizations that rely on LSC funds.
Every day we stay true to our mission: Learn Law. Live Justice.
P.S. As I was writing this message Sunday evening, I learned that our C|M|Law Moot Court Team had still another great national success this past weekend! I will share that and other successes in next week’s Monday Morning Message!
Have a great week!
Lee