Danielle Jones joined the Stanford Community Law Clinic in 2004 as Clinical Supervising Attorney and Lecturer-in-Law, and is its longest standing attorney. During her career at the Clinic, she has supervised housing, employment, and criminal record expungement matters. She also co-directed one of the law school’s early International Human Rights Clinic, traveling in 2006 with a group of students to Accra, Ghana and supervising them on projects in country involving community economic development and conditions of incarceration.
Danielle currently directs the Community Law Clinic’s expungement practice, supervising students in a variety of advocacy efforts on behalf of and in partnership with formerly incarcerated people. Under her supervision, students represent clients in law and motion practice, and are involved in policy advocacy, and community education efforts. The goal of the clinic’s practice in this area is to assist individuals in securing a meaningful path to re-entry after being involved in the criminal justice system. Students are given an opportunity to reflect on that system, its collateral effects, and how lawyers can be involved in multi-pronged efforts to promote re-integration. Danielle’s passion for this work inspires the students, who see in her an example of what it means for one’s personal values and professional role to be merged. She is a statewide leader in this field, and speaks and trains often on the issues. Danielle additionally supervises clinic students in cases in other subject areas, and co-teaches the clinic seminar and case rounds components.
Prior to joining Stanford, Danielle spent the first part of her legal career in Los Angeles where she worked on the litigation and management teams at the Housing Rights Center (HRC), a private non-profit organization. While at HRC, she worked on federal and state fair housing (discrimination) cases. While in law school, Danielle worked for the ACLU of Southern California and later served as a board member of the organization.