On the last day of the winter term, Religious Liberty Clinic students Alex Treiger (JD ’19) and Greg Terryn (JD ’20) won a court order to allow their imprisoned client to change his name for religious reasons.

The client’s name-change request was rooted in his desire to return to the Messianic Jewish faith of his father and a sincere hope to serve as a religious leader to fellow inmates. Although the client had faced significant resistance across several years of litigation, the Clinic took up the cause last year and was able to draw from a recently passed California statute that more easily facilitates name changes for religious reasons in recognition of the significance of that step for people of faith.

As the client put it in a declaration in support of the students’ motion, “my [faith] has nourished me during my incarceration, kept me away from trouble, and aided my rehabilitation by strengthening my connection to G-d.” It was an honor for the Clinic and its students to have been able to secure for the client a name reflecting and honoring that faith.