What do we do?

The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB) is a student-run civil legal services organization that serves low-income and marginalized communities in and around Boston. Harvard Law School (HLS) students work at the Bureau during their 2L and 3L years, and work closely with their clinical instructors and fellow student attorneys on their cases. The Bureau takes cases that fall within one of its three practice areas: Housing, Family, and Wage & Hour.

Students can also expect to join a tight-knit community of fellow law students who are passionate and committed to issues like housing justice, racial justice, and gender justice. During their two years at the Bureau, students typically gain extensive, hands-on experience that helps them refine their skills in a wide variety of areas: courtroom advocacy, legal writing, working with opposing counsel, negotiation and settlement, working directly with clients and building relationships with clients, community organizing and working with community partners, and problem-solving and responding to unexpected developments. Depending on their practice area, students can expect to be in court on a frequent basis. Many HLAB students handle trials at some point during their two years at the Bureau.

Our practice areas

Housing

The Housing practice works closely with clients facing civil housing issues, primarily evictions. Student attorneys provide full legal representation to clients in Housing Court under Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Rule 3:03, provide limited assistance representation at community lawyering events, and take on policy and organizing initiatives. The Housing practices engages traditional direct representation and movement/community lawyering frameworks.
The Housing practice currently has three community lawyering events: the Attorney for the Day Program, Answer and Discovery Clinic, and City Life / Vida Urbana Meetings.
During the Attorney for the Day program, students go to the Eastern Housing Court in downtown Boston to provide tenants with legal advice and limited-scope representation during mediations and court events on that day.
Students participating in the Answer and Discovery Clinic help tenants respond to their landlords’ eviction cases by completing answer and discovery forms, which allow tenants to preserve their right to a jury trial, assert counterclaims and defenses, and obtain important evidence relevant to their cases.
In partnership with City Life / Vida Urbana, students attend weekly tenants organizing meetings to provide individuals with civil housing concerns free legal advice.
We have a long standing relationship with City Life / Vida Urbana, a grassroots community group with whom we work to advocate for the expansion of housing rights in the state of Massachusetts. We are committed to our mission of protecting the fundamental human right of housing for our clients.
Family

The Family practice works with clients who have traditional family proceedings, family defense work, and SIJS cases. Traditional family cases include divorce, custody, child support, and other related matters. Family defense work involves protecting families threatened by state intervention and surveillance, such as advocating for a client during ongoing investigations by the Department of Children and Families; informing families of their rights; speaking directly with the DCF social worker to negotiate family action plans and to avoid emergency removals; and representing parents an administrative appeals. SIJS cases pertain to obtaining a certain legal classification for undocumented minors so that they can eventually apply for legal permanent resident status. Student attorneys in the Family practice have opportunities to build meaningful relationships with clients, engage in courtroom advocacy, negotiate with opposing counsel, and navigate governmental agencies like the Department of Children and Families. The mission of the Family Practice Area is to empower clients to make their own decisions regarding their families, and to limit state interference and surveillance of families.
Wage & Hour

The Wage & Hour practice represents workers who are victims of wage theft in the Greater Boston area. Wage theft occurs when employers fail to compensate their employees in accordance with the law. Typical wage theft violations include failure to pay minimum wage, earned overtime, or sick leave. Additionally, wage cases may involve employers that have illegally retaliated against workers exercising their rights under wage and hour law.
Along with wage cases, the Wage & Hour practice also takes on unemployment insurance (UI) cases on behalf of clients whose applications for UI have been denied. Among other UI-related work, wage student attorneys primarily represent UI clients at their appeal hearings in front of the Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA).
Wage student attorneys have the opportunity to develop valuable skill sets by taking on a wide range of responsibilities, including writing demand letters, negotiating settlement agreements with opposing counsel, leading depositions and discovery efforts, and advocating for clients in small claims and district court. Ultimately, the mission of the Wage & Hour practice area is to promote worker rights by protecting them from employers’ illicit wage practices.

FAQs

Yes. However, the two-year commitment allows students at HLAB to get much more depth of knowledge and practical experience, as well as familiarity with their cases, than a single semester at a clinic does. Additionally, students will often work on cases that touch a range of issues, even within their given practice area and within a single case.
Students at HLAB with interests in areas offered by other clinics are often able to compensate for it in other ways, such as doing research for a professor or taking a class.
Yes! Many, if not most of HLAB’s members are involved in other significant commitments such as doing research for a professor or serving as a Board member for other clubs. Many HLAB members are also student attorneys with student practice organizations (SPOs).
The average workload for an HLAB student is an estimated 20 hours, though this may fluctuate depending on one’s casework. This 20 hours includes speaking with clients, preparing for court proceedings, meeting with clinical instructors, and handling other administrative tasks and projects related to one’s cases or responsibilities at the Bureau.
Student attorneys work very closely with their clinical instructors (CIs), who work full-time at the Bureau and have practical experience in their given practice area. HLAB students have the benefit of being the primary lead on their cases while also having the close guidance of their CIs, with whom they typically meet on a weekly basis. CIs play a critical role in helping students develop their theories of their cases, figure out next steps, and respond to ongoing developments.
Yes! Through their casework and experience working with clients, engaging with opposing counsel, and navigating relationships with fellow student attorneys and clinical instructors, students at the Bureau gain practical skills that are largely transferable to nearly any type of profession that they choose to go into. After graduation, many students at the Bureau pursue a number of different professions other than direct services.
Yes! Your work in HLAB will fulfill your Professional Responsibility requirement (typically a 3-4 credit course) and your Pro Bono Hours requirement. Many students are also able to fulfill their Writing requirement through their written work as a student attorney.
Given the variation of timelines for the different organizations, the Bureau is willing to grant extensions to those who wish to wait on BSA/HLR decisions in the summer. Students interested in HLAB should still apply in March and, if accepted, notify the Vice Presidents of Membership about deferring their acceptance until the summer. Given the demanding time commitments required by all three organizations, students may not be a part of more than one such organization.
Yes! Our Vice Presidents of Membership, as well as other students at the Bureau, frequently organize and host social gatherings throughout the semester for the HLAB community. Every fall semester, HLAB also hosts a weekend retreat for all members. Additionally, the Bureau’s location on 23 Everett Street provides a common space out of which students often work throughout the week, whether on their casework or their schoolwork.
See instructions here for how to apply.