Asst. Dean Klothen and Students from the Pro-Bono Program

Community service is an important part of the Rutgers School of Law—Camden, and it is a nationally recognized leader in public interest law. Through a wide array of clinics and pro bono projects and opportunities, the Law School affirms its role as a committed institutional citizen, providing our students with a hands-on education in public interest law and imparting in them an ethic of community service. The numbers leave little doubt about the Law School's commitment: each year our students and faculty provide over 30,000 hours of free legal services to the citizens of New Jersey and the metropolitan Philadelphia region.

Among our many clinics and pro bono projects are the Domestic Violence Clinic and its companion pro bono project, which serves in myriad ways as many as 700 victims of domestic violence each year; the Children's Justice Clinic, serving the often forgotten youth of Camden facing juvenile delinquency charges; the Street Law Program, which sends our students into Camden to teach disadvantaged young people about the law that most impacts them in their daily lives; and our innovative Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Fellowship Program, wherein a select number of students get the opportunity to teach constitutional law and civics in underprivileged Camden high schools. These clinics and projects, in addition to many others revolving around issues as diverse as bankruptcy, immigration, voters rights, and tax assistance, keep our Law School community firmly rooted in the wider community and keenly aware of the ways that the law can be used to help people and serve the common good.

We also encourage our students to pursue law in the public interest full-time, both during the summers and once they graduate from Rutgers—Camden. Besides maintaining a broad network of connections in the public interest community, the Law School provides various funding opportunities for students seeking to pursue public interest jobs during the summer and sponsors a Loan Repayment Assistance Program, which provides financial assistance to help defray law school debt obligations for our graduates who choose lower paid public interest and public service careers.

Overseeing Rutgers—Camden's pro bono and public interest efforts in this regard is Eve Biskind Klothen, Assistant Dean for Pro Bono and Public Interest Programs and a nationally respected leader in public interest legal education. In recognition of her contributions, Dean Klothen was awarded the 2009 Father Robert Drinan Award by the Association of American Law Schools, which noted that her work at Rutgers—Camden "has both dramatically expanded opportunities for students to engage in an array of pro bono activities, and has been instrumental in building a broad law school culture that values and rewards public service and makes it possible for more students to pursue careers in public service." Victoria Chase, who the Philadelphia Business Journal named to its "40 under 40" list of top young professionals in 2004, came to the Rutgers School of Law—Camden with an extensive background in public interest law and directs our expanding clinical program.

Every Rutgers School of Law—Camden student has multiple opportunties to participate in the Law School's pro bono projects and clinical courses, giving them the chance to further develop and hone their lawyering skills while serving their community. All go to reinforce the pro bono ethic, which is part of the fabric of the Law School.

The Rutgers School of Law—Camden is proud of its tradition of community service and of the good it does for the underprivileged every day.