I heard this story on The Texas Standard today -- what a great program! Kudos to the law clinic students, to Armin Salek who initiated the clinic and to Dan Rather for awarding Mr. Salek the "best idea to innovate Texas education" award!
Nation’s First High School Law Clinic Nurtures Fledgling Legal Eagles
The sounds of Texas.
The Rather Foundation
Devin Ritter, a junior at Akins High School in Austin, presents his opening statement to Texas Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Boyd as attorneys and students observe.
When he was in law
school, Armin Salek noticed that most of his friends’ parents were also
attorneys. That didn’t make for a very diverse pool of people entering the
legal profession. To jump-start an interest in the law among young people who
hadn’t been exposed to that career path, Salek created the Legal Eagle
Internship at Austin’s Akins High School. It is the first high school legal aid
clinic in the country. Salek was awarded the 2020 Rather Prize, which recognizes of “the best idea to innovate
Texas education.” He plans to use the $10,000 he received to start more legal
clinics.
“We have the first cohort of high school students working on real,
legal cases – immigration, wills. Our students were particularly excited about
handling gender marker and name changes at the end of the year. … Through that
clinic, students at our school would be able to tell students who have not
identified with their name or gender marker that we support you, and we will
help you get the name identification that matches the way you see yourself.”
“What we are trying to do is create a pipeline for
underrepresented populations into the [legal] profession. Law should be a place
to advocate, regardless of where you start.”
“I really learned family
law through my students. They can tell you when a child can provide their
opinion for which parent they want to live with in a family law court. They’ll
tell you about situations where they were in immigration court, watching a
parent in deportation proceedings.”
