I spent my externship year at the Feerick Center for Social Justice at Fordham Law School. The Center seeks to frame concrete, achievable solutions to the problems of urban poverty in New York City through fact finding, legal research, policy research, and educational programs. The Center is named after John D. Feerick, who served as Dean of the Law School from 1982-2002, and who plays a vital role at the Center as its Founder and Director.

In addition to the legal experience and education I received at the Center, it was highly rewarding to work at an organization focused on addressing poverty issues impacting people living in New York City, particularly at a time of poor economic conditions. My activities at the Center included organizing educational programs as well as researching and drafting articles dealing with specific issues affecting those living in poverty in New York City. Several of these programs and articles focused on landlord/tenant foreclosure law and consumer bankruptcy law.

The Center also plays a substantial role at the Civil Legal Advice and Resource Office (CLARO), which is a free, weekly walk-in clinic that provides limited legal advice to pro se litigants with consumer debt matters in the New York City Civil Courts. Many of the clients at CLARO know little to nothing of their legal rights, and educating them about these rights is critical, especially when they are dealing with legal problems such as foreclosure and consumer debt matters. I can still recall the faces of consumer debt defendants when first arriving at the CLARO Office. The defendants, sometimes speaking little to no English, typically arrive afraid and confused. They would tell us how thankful they were when they saw our CLARO ads posted in the Courthouse, and that without us they wouldn’t have known where to turn for help. Whether by providing legal advice directly or simply pointing the defendants in the right direction, it was rewarding to know we could help them develop a plan to face their legal issues.

On a personal note, as a former student of Fordham Law School, the opportunity to work closely with Dean Feerick for a large part of the year was particularly gratifying. I learned a great deal through our work together, not only about the legal topics on which we wrote but also about why the work we were doing at the Center was so important. I am very thankful for the time I spent at Fordham’s Social Justice Center and I know I can carry the lessons learned there well into the future.