Georgetown Law Alumni Magazine - Res Ipsa Loquitur
Fall/Winter 2009 - Online Volume 2
Feature Articles
The Work of Justice
By Ann W. Parks
In the words of Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff, justice and the public interest programs that promote it are “the heart and soul of what we do here.” Through its clinics, centers, institutes and programs, Georgetown Law excels at promoting service to others. But the work of justice is never done, and so this fall the Law Center is launching the Justice Agenda, a program that builds on the school’s Jesuit heritage and enhances its long history of public service through new programs, classes, clinics and fellowships. In the following pages, faculty, students, staff and alumni provide their insights on the Law Center’s work for justice. We begin with comments from Dean Aleinikoff:
Carved on the wall of our library is this motto: “Law is but the means, justice is the end.” These words define the Law Center. I talk about them in my introductory speech every year to first-year students. Our classes, our faculty, the kinds of programs we put on, the fact that we have an Office of Public Interest and Community Service (OPICS) open to everyone — it would be very hard to miss the message of public service at this law school. And the message is important not only for students who choose to do public interest work but for all students, those who work in large firms or small firms, as corporate counsel or in any number of other capacities.
The Justice Agenda is about making the world a better place at a local, national and international level. Our local work includes the pro bono projects that many students undertake; it involves the Institute for Public Representation, the Domestic Violence and other clinics’ representation of people in the community. We influence the national scene through our centers and institutes and their work on national policy issues, such as the Harrison Institute’s push for affordable housing; as well as through the Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) that helps our students spread out across the country and work at public interest jobs upon graduation. On the international scene our postgraduate fellows are involved in the Jesuit Refugee Service, Human Rights First and other international human rights issues, and here at the Law Center there are, just to name a few, the Human Rights Clinic; the Center for Applied Legal Studies, which does asylum applications; and the Women’s Law and Public Policy Foundation, which brings human rights lawyers from Africa to Georgetown Law.
Most importantly, though, we are helping the needy wherever we find them. Abused women, asylum seekers, kids caught up in the criminal process — these people will always need representation. There is a massive need to work with the marginalized, the poor, those who are discriminated against — no matter what economic conditions our students find when they graduate. In fact, we’ve given newly graduated students still looking for employment a stipend to work in a public interest job for the rest of the calendar year. The economic downturn creates a greater need for public interest work to help people who are struggling.
The Justice Agenda is about taking an already stellar program and making it stronger. We’d like to expand the number of postgraduate fellowships and create more clinical opportunities for students. We’d like to increase our support for the LRAP program. We’d like to involve students in more pro bono activities during their time here. I think we’re doing a great job now, but if we had twice the resources, we could do four times as much.
