As a 2L, Toby Merrill ’11 was enrolled in a Harvard Law School consumer clinic, litigating against predatory lenders of subprime mortgages. Her new mission is no less urgent: fighting for people affected by the predatory lending practices of some for-profit colleges, alleged to provide worthless degrees in exchange for thousands of dollars in government-backed loans.
On April 5, Harvard Law School’s Legal Services Center celebrated its 40th Anniversary of training more than 4,000 attorneys and law students and providing pro bono civil legal services to thousands of Greater Boston’s most vulnerable residents.
Impact Clinic or SPO In May 2018, a federal magistrate issued a temporary injunction to prevent the U.S. Department of Education from forcing former students of for-profit Corinthian Colleges to repay what the plaintiffs describe as fraudulent student debt. The PREDATORY LENDING AND CONSUMER PROTECTION CLINIC at the HLS WilmerHale Legal Services Center is representing […]
More than 100 years after students started the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, there are now 40 clinics and Student Practice Organizations at HLS, focused on everything from cyberlaw to veterans’ rights.
A class action lawsuit has given two Harvard Law students the chance to help frame both the legal and media strategies against a lucrative telephone company contract that exploits inmates while enriching the coffers of a county sheriff.
On Jan. 3, Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending filed a 7.3 billion dollar class action lawsuit in the bankruptcy proceedings of ITT Tech — one of the country’s largest for-profit college chains — on behalf of a proposed class of hundreds of thousands of former students.
With a $415,000 grant from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office—and the help of a groundbreaking new law that offers homeowners strong pre-foreclosure protections—the HLS WilmerHale Legal Services Center (LSC) has launched a new program to help fight foreclosures in Mattapan, one of Boston’s most challenged neighborhoods.
Many for-profit colleges, which get the overwhelming majority of their revenues from federal financial aid programs, rely on high-pressure tactics and false employment and salary guarantees to lure students into taking out loans. Now, through the efforts of Harvard Law School alum Toby Merrill ’11, some of the victims of these practices can get free legal aid to enforce their rights.
The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and two HLS clinics help staunch the foreclosure crisis in Massachusetts.
There are now 16 clinics at HLS, enabling students to do fieldwork at home and abroad. Here are stories from three of them, taking students inside inner cities and inner sanctums.
