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A community legal clinic launched two years ago with a tax credit for rental property has served more than 6,000 people and is certified by the Oregon State Bar.
Portland Community College’s Community Legal & Educational Access & Referral (CLEAR) Clinic provides deportation records and expungement, a deportation legal defense program, some immigration legal service programs, and name and gender identification changes, to public throughout Oregon.
“CLEAR Clinic’s biggest commitment is that we don’t charge anything.
Leni Tupper, director of the CLEAR Clinic“There’s no way, even downsizing, and checking costs, nothing,” said Leni Tupper, director of the CLEAR Clinic. The Scanner.
For his work on the program, Tupper received the Oregon State Bar President’s Technology and Innovation Award “for significant contributions in Oregon to promoting respect for the rule of law, improving the quality of legal services or increasing access to justice through new technology or other innovations.”
“I’ve always been very interested in using the law as a tool for social justice, and just figuring out how to do that,” Tupper said.
Karla Marquez Gaab
Karla Marquez Gaab, a senior law student and expatriate at the eviction clinic, was one of four people to receive the public leadership award. Marquez Gaab assisted in CLEAR’s asylum clinic for undocumented community members last spring, and was recognized for his work with three friends to create UdocuLawNorthwest, which helps undocumented and citizen students to obtain legal education.
“When I got my DACA work permit it was because of the clinic,” Marquez Gaab said The Scanner. “I just thought (working at the drive-in clinic) was a way to give back but it’s a different job, a different place.”
Legal Barrier Navigation
Although many law firms provide a reasonable number of hours for pro bono work, and many advocacy organizations provide free or low-cost information, including representation, CLEAR fills a gap in the legal process.
“A lot of our services are services that the legal community likes to think people can navigate themselves,” Tupper said.
“One thing we hear all the time at the clinic is, ‘LegalAid won’t do this, the ACLU won’t do this.’ This is not a fancy lawyer, it’s not a trial. It’s a simple, simple legal service, which means the court has some legal resources to help themselves, and they think people can navigate themselves. But the truth is that we see from thousands of people that people cannot navigate the process by themselves, so when they come to us we can help them with that work.
PCC paralegal students work as interns and gain work experience at the CLEAR Clinic.
Paralegal students often have a background in legal and legal matters, something Tupper, an immigration law expert and instructor in PCC’s paralegal program, realized as he tried to looking for ways to lend a hand to his students abroad- based on experience. He began organizing same-day legal clinics and small legal services.
“I’m going to set up a (DACA) renewal clinic there, and I’m going to get a bunch of my colleagues from the immigration law world to volunteer and do 50 people’s DACA renewals in one day,” he said. “I worked with the Metropolitan Public Defender Community Law Division to do waiver clinics and court fines and forfeitures and those kinds of things.”
But only one event can reach many people. He worked with Rakeem Washington, who was director of admissions and re-enrollment at PCC. Washington has worked with many incarcerated students and potential students, and recognizes the dire need for criminal records clinics. Tupper and Washington jointly received a Community Development and Education Development (SEED) Fund award from the city’s Department of Community & Civic Life two years ago–one of six local organizations to so.
“We decided to work together and apply for a grant to set up and secure those clinics,” Tupper said.
The CLEAR Clinic model assists and assists clients in navigating the various legal processes while “utilizing the incredible strength and dedication of paralegals and paralegal PCC models, including legal models and volunteers who want to provide a small service. It’s a smaller part of the environment. That allows us to help more people” and keep costs down, Tupper said.
“We’re trying to serve a lot of people who have been marginalized in our community – a lot of LGBTQIA + community work, a lot of BIPOC people we work with, a lot of immigrants and refugees and undocumented immigrants. , through our immigration legal service.”
To date, the CLEAR Clinic has completed nearly 5,000 criminal records, 450 DACA renewals and immigration status checks and more than 250 name and gender identity changes. The clinic has also provided 245 people with eviction protections and helped 400 people get evictions dismissed, Tupper said, which means removing multiple evictions from the agency’s record. people. In addition, the clinic has served 455 clients with drop protection services since November 2021.
Legal Aid
A criminal record makes it very difficult to get a job, housing and many educations. Two recent pieces of legislation have significantly increased CLEAR’s impact on that front: Senate Bill 397, which reduces waiting times and increases eligibility for expungements, and SB 819, convicted felons who are deemed ineligible can petition the district attorney to have the offenses reconsidered.
“Prior to that, the only option was to go to the governor for a pardon,” Tupper said of SB 819.
Both bills took effect earlier this year.
“By 2022 maybe 25-30% of the people who come to us will be eligible for cancellation,” Tupper said.
“And now, almost everyone who walks through our doors is eligible for something on their record that will be expunged, if not everything.”
The clinic can, for example, send letters to landlords explaining the most recent allegations to be dismissed.
“We say ‘This person came to our clinic, they have an opportunity to cancel today, we don’t think about the reasons for their cancellation, we know they are alive, please consider these facts when you’re making a decision about this person,’” Tupper said.
Also, since all that stands between a person and dismissal are fines and fees, the clinic has sent letters to the court explaining the person’s situation and ability. to pay, and request a reduction or cancellation of fees.
“Because we have a lot of paralegals and law students working here we have the opportunity to do something like this,” he said.
It works in two ways, says Marquez Gaab.
“This is a great place to work in a program that creates a good working environment that brings together lawyers, organizers and legal students,” he said. “Each person brings different skills. For the clinic learning environment, it’s a way for everyone to learn from other legal professionals.”
The CLEAR clinic is currently supported by the PCC Foundation, the PCC Dreamers Resource Center, a grant from the non-profit Innovation Law Lab to support DACA health care and immigration services, a grant from the Portland Housing Bureau for the health center’s eviction protection program and proposed Measure 110 to expand the clinic’s criminal record recovery program to several rehabilitation centers and within the clinic.
For more information: www.pcc.edu/clear-clinic.
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