Inland Empire Latino Lawyers Association (IELLA), in partnership with San Bernardio Superior Court and Riverside Superior Court, recently started offering expungement services to people with conviction history in San Bernardino and Riverside.  Monica Mar, the executive director of IELLA, was with the Reentry Legal Clinic in our first year, and we are thrilled to see her pioneer offering reentry legal services to those in her service area.  So congratulations to everyone!

IELLA isn't the first public interest agency to offer reentry legal services, however, in the State of California.  We aren't either.  Other agencies responded to their community's need for these services much earlier.  And we take this opportunity to offer our gratitude to those who came before us--and those who will come after.  We acknowledge that this is a long struggle, something that will probably last our lifetime and beyond.  And we are so blessed to be in the company of so many good people on this journey.  You can find some of them on this (slightly-outdated) map of reentry legal services in Southern California.

In particular, at the Reentry Legal Clinic, we owe everything to the Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles (NLS-LA) and staff attorneys, Jose O. Tello and Josh Stehlik, without whose selfless assistance this clinic wouldn't have been possible.  And we also thank the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC).  Although they are in Berkeley, hundreds of miles away from us, their assistance too has been integral to our growth over the years.

Since this clinic depends largely on law student volunteers, we struggle through the summer months (June, July, August) when the vast majority of them become unavailable for various reasons.  3Ls go MIA studying for the bar.  Many 2Ls and 1Ls leave for internship outside LA.  This year, we seriously considered shutting down the clinic for the three months as a result.  No one wanted to see that happen, so we instead decided to, for the first time, limit the number of participants who are allowed to register for each month's clinic.  Anticipating between 6 and 8 volunteers, we set the limit  at 12.

This past clinic, held on June 11, 2011, we had a huge turnout of volunteers.  True, we had a big drop-off in the number of law school volunteers, but so many others stepped up.  So thank you!  As a result, we're increasing the registration limit for the month of July to 18--a 50% increase from June.  In August, depending on how July turns out, we may increase it to 27--another 50% increase! (Maybe...)