Directory
Pace University School of Law
Pace University
Law School Pro Bono Programs
Contact Information
Elyse Diamond
Adjunct Professor & Director, Public Interest Law Center
[email protected]
914-422-42192
Category Type
Formal Voluntary Pro Bono Program
Description of Programs
The Public Interest Law Center coordinates and organizes a formal voluntary pro bono program (2), called the Pro Bono Justice Program, which includes coordinating on and off-campus pro bono project trainings, referrals for pro bono opportunities, weekly or otherwise regular collection and publication of on-going on and off campus pro bono projects and administrative support for student group projects.
The Public Interest Law Center coordinates the law school’s Pro Bono Justice Program, which offers opportunities for even our newest students to receive training and get off campus and into the community, where they provide assistance in wide-ranging legal practice areas including immigration services, to domestic violence, to predatory lending and consumer debt, to community education on voting and other civil rights, and provide coverage on legal help lines, including LiveHelpNY.
Location of Programs
Staffing/Management/Oversight
The Public Interest Law Center and Pro Bono Justice Center is managed by the Public Interest Law Center Director, Elyse Diamond, and the Public Interest Law Center Project Coordinator
Funding
Student Run Pro Bono Groups/Specialized Law Education Projects
Students at the law school engage in and help coordinate a variety of pro bono projects. Those have included Sanctuary for Families CAP program, VITA tax assistance and others.
Faculty and Administrative Pro Bono
The Haub Law faculty and staff regularly engage in wide-ranging pro bono legal and other volunteer, community service and public educations activities and several are active participants and members AALS and NALP public service and pro bono sections and committees, as well as the NY Permanent Commission on Access to Justice.
Awards/Recognition
Community Service
The Haub Law faculty and staff regularly engage in wide-ranging pro bono legal and other volunteer, community service and public educations activities and several are active participants and members AALS and NALP public service and pro bono sections and committees, as well as the NY Permanent Commission on Access to Justice.
Law School Public Interest Programs
Contact Information
Public Interest Law Center
[email protected]
Director, Elyse Diamond
[email protected]
914-422-4219
Certificate/Curriculum Programs
JD candidates at Haub Law and practicing attorneys have the opportunity to earn certificates in environmental law, health law & policy or international law.
Through Pace's joint degree programs, a student may earn a JD while working on a second advanced degree. By enrolling in a joint degree program, a full-time student may complete both degrees within four years, instead of the five years of study required when each degree is pursued separately. Part-time students can complete a joint degree program in as few as six years. JD/LLM in Environmental Law JD/Master of Environmental Management (With Yale University School of Forestry & Environmental Studies) JD/MS in Environmental Policy with Bard Center for Environmental Policy
Haub Law also offers several less formal Paths to Practice (formerly known as Concentrations) - these start with required foundational courses in a given area, build on those courses with intermediate doctrinal electives and related courses, and culminate with a practical skills-based capstone experience.
Public Interest Centers
The PACE ENERGY PROJECT – Founded in 1987 by Dean Emeritus Richard L. Ottinger, a former member of the US House of Representatives, the Energy Project plays a leading role in a national coalition of environmental and consumer advocates who are working to create win-win energy policy solutions for America's economy and environment. The Energy Project has helped create legal tools for promoting economic investments in energy efficiency and renewable resources, in order to abate acid rain, contain global warming, reduce urban smog and other environmental damage associated with the production and delivery of electric energy. The Project leads a broad based public interest coalition in New York, partners with the Mid-Atlantic Energy Project in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and assists local groups in Michigan and Florida in the pursuit of electric utility regulatory reform. The Project's study, Environmental Costs of Electricity (Oceana Publications, 1990) is the seminal work on valuation of environmental costs to society from electric utility operations and describes ways to incorporate environmental costs in utility resource acquisition. The Project is hosting a national photovoltaic educational project under a grant from the Department of Energy. The Project is also working with the St. Regis Tribe of the Mohawk Nation on a model program to extend the economic and environmental benefits of conservation and renewable resources to Native American communities.
The PACE INVESTOR RIGHTS PROJECT (PIRP) – Is dedicated to the protection of investor rights, specifically the rights of small investors, and the enforcement of broker-dealers' obligations to their customers. Through its three main arms -- Advocacy, Research and Community Education -- PIRP seeks broadly to inform and educate the investing public in New York State about their legal rights and responsibilities.
The PACE WOMEN'S JUSTICE CENTER – Students and their supervisory attorneys represent victims of family violence and abuse, including victims with special needs such as the elderly, women with low income, women who are developmentally disabled or mentally impaired, victims of incest and other sexual assault, and child victims. The Center not only represents hundreds of clients, but also creates and disseminates new techniques for legal intervention; trains dozens of law students and thousands of judges, attorneys, police officers, sexual assault examiners, and others who work to eradicate injustice for women and children; and publishes articles and materials about effective and compassionate representation. It also engages in extensive legislative research and advocacy and has been highly instrumental in the enactment and/or reform of a great deal of New York State legislation during the past decade.
The LAND USE LAW CENTER – Engages law students in understanding and explaining how best to develop and conserve the land. The Center draws on its staff of experts and law students to train local officials in New York State to take an enlightened and balanced approach to shaping land use policies and regulations. Pace Law students work as full-fledged legal associates with responsibility for research projects, publications, outreach, community services, project management and technology.
The EMPIRE JUSTICE CENTER – This branch of the Greater Upstate Law Project was created as an alternative source of free legal services for the poor in the Hudson Valley in 1996, when Congress placed limitations on all federally-funded legal services programs. The EJC is a locus of pro bono service for volunteer law students, a field placement center for our Public Interest/Legal Services Externship, and a collaborator and back-up center for the other programs of the John Jay Legal Services Clinic, where it is located, especially the Immigration Justice Clinic. It is also a lead member of the New York Immigration Coalition and the Westchester Hispanic Coalition. It conducts numerous community education "know your rights" programs for immigrants. Most important, its lawyers can and do provide the full range of legal remedies needed by poor litigants, and can and do serve all poor and disadvantaged people, including immigrants, prisoners, those who would benefit from class actions, and those for whom a winning litigation strategy depends on the ability to seek attorneys' fees as a negotiating tool.
The CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL STUDIES – Allows J.D., LL.M., and S.J.D. candidates to work directly with Pace law professors in advanced environmental law research and law reform. Since 1982, the Center has developed sustained programs in Energy Law and in International Environmental Law, as well as undertaking funded research programs in a number of areas. The Center, which is co-directed by Dean Richard L. Ottinger, Professor Nicholas A. Robinson and other environmental law professors at Pace, sponsors periodic colloquia and participates in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. (see https://law.pace.edu/centers-institutes/global-center-environmental-legal-studies )
Public Interest Clinics
Haub Law’s extensive clinical opportunities include:
Immigration Justice Clinic
Barbara C. Salken Criminal Justice Clinic
Environmental Litigation Clinic
Investor Rights Clinic
Food and Beverage Law Clinic
Amelia A. Gould Representation in Mediation Clinic
Equal Justice America: Disability Rights/Health Law Clinic (Reopening January 2022)
Externships/Internships
Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law offers numerous externships (most listed below). Additionally, while at Pace Law, our students are likewise demonstrating their commitment to social justice and public service through summer and academic year internships and unprecedented hours of pro bono work. Each summer, as many as 150 students dedicate their summer to public interest internships, with placements spanning a wide range of practice areas and geographic locations from juvenile defense and eviction prevention in New York City, to environmental advocacy in Alabama and North Carolina, to state and local government in New Jersey and Connecticut, to labor law in Washington DC, to disability rights and prosecution in Westchester, to human rights at the Hague.
Corporate Law Externship
Criminal Justice Externship (Summer Only)
Environmental Law Externship (New York)
Environmental Law Externship (Washington, DC)
Family Court Externship
Federal Judicial Extern Honors Program
Guided Externship
Honors Prosecution Externship
Legal Services Externship
Mediation Practicum
Prosecution Externship
Real Estate Law Externship
Social Justice Advocacy Externship
State Judicial Externship
United Nations Environmental Diplomacy Practicum
Classes with a Public Service Component
Haub Law remains committed to the pursuit of racial and social justice in the United States and in the world. This commitment is in our DNA as a law school and will continue beyond the present moment. We will build on the longstanding work of our Criminal Justice Institute, Immigration Justice Clinic, Legal Services Externship, Civil Rights courses and externships, and environmental justice initiatives. Our students, faculty and staff will use our training, energy, and resources to effect change in the way that law is taught, learned, and applied. We will continue to condemn and combat racism and other forms of hate and oppression, and we will work with our alumni, partners, and friends to impact the community beyond the Haub Law campus. Our work on behalf of diversity, equity, and inclusion will take the following specific forms:
Social justice course offerings for the 2020-21 academic year were expanded and included the following courses: Access to Justice Seminar, Civil Rights Law, Advanced Civil Procedure Seminar: Social Justice Litigation, Advanced Issues in Criminal Law: The Law of Policing, Poverty Law, Prisoners’ Rights, Social Justice Advocacy Externship, Guided Externship in Civil Rights, Topics in Legal Theory: The Black Lives Matter Movement. A description of these courses can be found on the full roster of courses. For Fall 2021, the law school and University Seidenberg School for Computer Science will jointly offer a new interdisciplinary Access to Justice Lab course. The Curriculum Committee continues to explore new ways to bring social justice into the classroom.
Public Interest Journals
Pace Law Review Volume 24.2
21 Pace Envtl. L. Rev. 1 & 2
PI Career Support Center
The Public Interest Law Center (“PILC”) was created in 2008 to unite and supplement the law school’s public interest activities and programs, to nurture student engagement in public service and pro bono, and to provide comprehensive targeted career and professional development services to students and graduates aspiring to build careers in public service law. Elyse Diamond, PILC’s overarching goal is providing innovative, thoughtful and intensely personalized career and professional development support for all students who wish to explore public service law and helping those who wish to, to obtain and, more importantly thrive, in public service law jobs. PILC does this by working seamlessly with rest of the CCPD’s leadership and staff, collaborating with clinical programs, faculty, and student groups, and staying connected with Haub Law’s amazing and supportive alumni working in public service law. It’s working. Haub Law has become a go-to school for future lawyers interested in public service and Haub Law graduates are indeed going on to use their legal education to promote social justice and advance the public good through legal advocacy. They serve as public defenders and prosecutors, environmental lawyers, advocates for immigrants, the elderly and victims of domestic violence, and hold positions in wide-ranging government and nonprofit offices.
Through advising, programming, and collaborations with our clinical programs and faculty and student groups, PILC has helped numerous students learn about public interest career paths, obtain internships in public service and, ultimately, find post-graduate employment in public service law. PILC coordinates student participation in several public interest-focused legal career fairs, and PILC’s Director, along with career office advisors, spend thousands of hours helping students prepare applications and interview for public interest internships and jobs. Recent graduates have obtained entry-level positions with leading public interest offices around the country, been selected for prestigious post-graduate public interest and government fellowships, and serve as federal and state judicial clerks.
Loan Repayment Assistance Programs (LRAP)
For a description see: https://law.pace.edu/career-development/public-interest-law-center/public-interest-programs-offered-pace/student-loan
Post-Graduate Fellowships/Awards
Law School Funded:
While not a fellowship paid in cash by the Law School, a Pace graduate occupies the staff attorney position at the Hudson Valley Poverty Law Center, which is supported in kind by the Law School as a component of our John Jay Legal Services Clinic. This position was conceived of and deliberately created for a Pace graduate as a path for Pace graduates to become accomplished leaders in public interest practice and gradually open doors for other Pace Law graduates in public interest work.
Graduate Student Funded:
Other Funding Sources:
Term Time Fellowships/Scholarships
Law School Funded:
John Jay Legal Services Merit Scholarship - Awarded to a number of outstanding applicants who have demonstrated a commitment to community and public service and who are unusually well prepared to assume the responsibilities of actual law practice during law school.
The Louise and Lawrence Ottinger Scholarship - This scholarship is awarded to entering students who have demonstrated a commitment to public interest law and exhibit financial need.
Graduate Student Funded
Other Funding Sources:
Select students also receive generous public service scholarships and fellowships through the generosity of faculty, alumni and donors.
Summer Fellowships
Law School Funded:
Through a coordinated effort between PILC and the University financial aid and administrative offices, and with some generous grants from alumni and supporters, many students who seek it can now receive PILC’s Public Interest Summer Fellowship funding for unpaid public interest internships. Each summer, as many as 150 students dedicate their summer to public interest internships, with placements spanning a wide range of practice areas and geographic locations from juvenile defense and eviction prevention in New York City, to environmental advocacy in Alabama and North Carolina, to state and local government in New Jersey and Connecticut, to labor law in Washington DC, to disability rights and prosecution in Westchester, to human rights at the Hague.
Graduate Student Funded:
Other Funding Sources:
Select students also receive generous public service scholarships and fellowships through the generosity of faculty, alumni and donors.
Extracurricular and Co-Curricular Programs
NAALS Annual Meeting – Pace hosted the National Association of Environmental Law Students' annual meeting. Pace students are very active in the governance and programming of NAELS.
International Criminal Moot Court Competition – The International Criminal Moot Court Competition was conceived of and planned during the 2004-5 year, with the first competition taking place in November 2005. It involves teams from U.S. and international law schools arguing a hypothetical case before the International Criminal Tribunal from the perspectives of the prosecutor, the defense counsel, and the victims' rights advocate.
National Environmental Moot Court Competition – The subject matter of the National Environmental Moot Court Competition is an issue of current public interest environmental law.
Student Public Interest Groups
The Elisabeth Haub School of Law is home to more than two dozen student-run and developed organizations, many of involve or are focused on public interest-oriented programs and opportunities. These organizations provide opportunities to share experiences with other students, develop leadership skills, and strongly enhance the academic and social aspects of your law school education. Many organizations also offer important networking opportunities with members of the bar and the bench, as well as with faculty and alumni. One organization focused solely on public interest is Haub Law’s Public Interest Law Student Organization (PILSO).
11/10/2021