The Racial and Disability Justice Pro Bono Project, known as RAD Justice, launched this year to focus on the intersectionality between racial and disability justice by partnering with the Integrated Community Collaborative (ICC), an organization helping Latinx families obtain services for their children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and get services from California’s regional system.

“A lot of students at Stanford Law School had an interest in community lawyering, so Professor Morantz connected us with the ICC,” says Leah Kennedy, JD ’22, who joined forces with Hannah Song, JD ’21, last year to start what would eventually grow into the RAD Justice project. Kennedy and Song worked closely with Alison Morantz, James and Nancy Kelso Professor of Law and director of the Stanford Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities Law and Policy Project, who has offered the group guidance in running the project.

According to Kennedy, Latinx families are underserved by California’s Regional Centers, which contract with the Department of Developmental Services to provide services for people with developmental disabilities. These families often find themselves fighting an uphill battle to meet their children’s needs, without representation or guidance.

RAD Justice supports the ICC’s work by centering on the experiences of families and following their leadership. This year, about a dozen SLS students have engaged with the group, assisting parents who are advocating for services for their children. “ICC is unique in that it’s a peer-to-peer support model. We attend individualized program plan meetings with families, create tools and resources to help families advocate for themselves, and support policy efforts for system-wide change,” says Hanna McGinnis, JD ’22, who co-led the project this year with Kennedy. For more, go to https://law.stanford.edu/racial-and-disability-justice-pro-bono-project-rad-justice/. SL