Like many communities in the United States, the Bay Area is experiencing a housing crisis. A chronic supply shortage has resulted in skyrocketing rents and economic incentives to replace low-income tenants with higher earners. In many neighborhoods surrounding Stanford, tenants are facing evictions for nonpayment of rent at an unprecedented rate. Tenants often have legal defenses, but without representation they cannot assert them, and they are vulnerable to swift and often catastrophic dislocation.

CLC students and attorneys are among the only lawyers in the local community who provide full-scale representation to tenants facing eviction in San Mateo County. These cases move fast, and CLC students draft pleadings, interview witnesses, assess the availability of dispositive motions, conduct discovery, negotiate with opposing counsel and prepare for trial all within a short number of weeks.

Students also participate in community-facing weekly clinics where legal aid lawyers assist unrepresented tenants. CLC’s eviction defense practice exposes students not only to the displacement crisis but also to the access to justice crisis, as they experience first-hand how having an attorney moves the needle for families facing eviction, and observe the hundreds of tenants who go unrepresented faring much less well.