The Community Law Clinic’s Larisa Bowman ’09 and Christina Rubalcava ’09 successfully represented a client who faced eviction because his disability benefits had ended and he could no longer afford to pay rent. In addition to negotiating a move-out date that coincided with his entry into a substance-abuse treatment facility, Bowman and Rubalcava obtained a $1,000 judgment for their client. Peter Bach-Y-Rita ’09 filed and was granted a motion in the Santa Clara County Superior Court to have the records of a client expunged. His client was convicted of a misdemeanor in the 1970s, but has since turned his life around and become a leader in the local AA community.

Criminal Defense Clinic faculty and students, including Jordan Blumenthal ’09 and Erin Schanning ’09, obtained a new hearing for a client whose attorney failed to present powerful mitigating evidence. The client was sentenced to life imprisonment under California’s “three strikes” law following a felony conviction for making violent threats in a verbal altercation. Blumenthal and Schanning investigated the case and filed a habeas corpus petition in state court.

The Environmental Law Clinic recently received summary judgment in a suit seeking a fee waiver for the Center for Biological Diversity under the Freedom of Information Act. Noah Long ’08 argued the case and convinced the court that the Office of Management and Budget had unlawfully denied the fee waiver.

In June, the International Human Rights Clinic, acting as co-counsel with the International Justice Network, filed a lawsuit against the United States government on behalf of Canadian journalist Jawed Ahmad. Ahmad has been held without charge in military custody at the detention facility at the U.S. Air Base in Bagram, Afghanistan, since October 2007. [To read about the clinic’s recent work in Namibia, click here.]

The newly launched Organizations and Transactions Clinic’s first semester last spring reaped significant results. Among them, Bev Moore ’09 and Jon Novotny ’08 designed a model contract for a Bay Area county to use when engaging mental health care providers; Susan Cameron ’08 (BA ’03) and Alice Yuan ’08 played a central role in planning and documenting a pending merger of six nonprofit charter schools; and Brent Harris ’09 (BA/MA ’04) and Melissa Magner ’08 worked with an East Palo Alto nonprofit to draft contract documents for establishing a new farmers market in the city.

The Youth and Education Law Project successfully handled a case involving an elementary school student with a traumatic brain injury and severe visual impairments whose school was trying to move her to a classroom without support for visually impaired students. Thanks to Alexis Casillas (visiting student) and Inbal Naveh ’09, who interviewed teachers, parents, and administrators, reviewed medical reports, and located a national expert who conducted a vision analysis of the student, the school voluntarily withdrew its claim against the student and her parents.