Labor and Employment Law Section's Community Outreach Programs

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Labor and Employment Law Section’s Community Outreach Programs

The following are some of the current projects undertaken by the section and its Community Outreach Committee. Interested volunteers for any of these projects should contact outreach coordinators Jennifer Abruzzo or Ralph Conte or the D.C. Bar Sections Office at 202-626-3463 for more information.

D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program’s Advice and Referral Clinics: Members of the section continue to participate in the Pro Bono Program’s Advice and Referral Clinics at Bread for the City in the Shaw neighborhood and at the Max Robinson Center in Anacostia. The section strives to send at least two attorney-volunteers each month to directly advise clinic attendees or assist other volunteers faced with questions about employment and labor law. Volunteer Now!
Workplace Street Law Project

The section’s project of teaching the rudiments of employment law to high school students has evolved and grown since its inception in 2000. Working with the Georgetown University Law Center’s Street Law Project, in which law students spend a year teaching various fields of law to high school seniors, the section provides a unit on rights and responsibilities in the workplace. The Community Outreach Committee of the section facilitated the development of a curriculum covering the job application process, wage and hour laws, workplace safety and health, employer rules, workers’ compensation, unemployment compensation, equal employment opportunities and sexual harassment, unjust discharge and
at-will employment. At this point, over 50 volunteers from the entire section teach the continually updated curriculum in over 20 high
schools throughout the city each Spring.

D.C. Employment Justice Center: The section has adopted the D.C. Employment Justice Center as an outreach project, and has assisted its legal advice and referral outreach by recruiting regular volunteers to staff its weekly clinics that provide legal advice to low income workers. The section also made a $5,000 seed-grant contribution to the Employment Justice Center to assist it in its first year of operations.

Grants to Fund Legal Internship: In the past, the Labor and Employment Law Section has funded summer law student internships, partnering the D.C. Commission on Human Rights, which adjudicates cases of employment discrimination under the D.C. Human Rights Act, and the Howard University School of Law Clinical Law Center. The section sponsored an eight-week summer internship at the Commission on Human Rights for a law student intern selected by the Howard Law Clinical Law Center and the school’s Public Interest Law Society, after an application and essay competition. The section intends to fund additional summer law student internships in 2007.
Community Economic Development: The section also remains committed to working on other community outreach projects, such as the CED Pro Bono Project, and cosponsoring Pro Bono Program training programs such as the employment law training.