USD Magazine Fall 2026

Tyler Lam ’25 (JD), Camryn Melanson ’24 (JD), Maeven McShane ’25 (MSLS), who participated with the Housing Rights Clinic, which helps tenants facing evictions and other legal issues.

STANDING UP FOR CONSUMER AND CIVIL RIGHTS

SUPPORTING SURVIVORS AND FAMILIES

head of a lawyer and the heart of a social worker.” That dual sensibility is baked into how the clinic operates. Weekly classes cover trauma-informed lawyering, helping students better understand how clients who have experienced violence or abuse may present and act differently than expected. And students always know they’re not alone, backed by the expertise and guidance of seasoned attorneys. Alienor Alexander, currently interning at the clinic, secured five-year restraining orders — the maximum available — for two clients this semester. “When I’m talking to clients, I can tell how scared they are,” she said. “It feels good to know I’ve helped make a change in their lives.” Today, eight former clinic students are now working at family law firms in San Diego, and Levin sees that growing pipeline as an essential part of the clinic’s purpose.

Katie Parker ’02 (JD) spent 17 years at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, the last seven as chief of the Civil Division, where she supervised more than 35 attorneys. She joined the Civil Clinic faculty in 2025, her first year in academic life, and found herself doing something new: letting go. “I’m not able to just do all the client work myself,” she said. “A lot of clinical teaching in law school is about letting the students figure it out.” The Civil Clinic, which Parker co-teaches with Professor of Practice Joe Villaseñor ’09 (JD), represents consumers in debt collection disputes, identity theft cases, financial elder abuse matters and civil rights cases in both state and federal court. Villaseñor, a first-generation college graduate and lawyer who has taught the clinic for several years, describes the power dynamic at the heart of consumer law cases in straightforward terms. “It’s not just the powerful and the corporations that should have advocates,” he said. “Everybody needs that advocate to be able to have a fair system and have true justice.” Parker has started to expand the clinic’s reach into Section 1983 civil rights cases, excessive force, conditions of confinement and deaths in custody, areas where the filing fees, depositions and expert witnesses required make cases too expensive for contingency-fee lawyers to take on. It’s exactly the kind of gap the clinic is positioned to fill.

Meredith Levin is designated as a Certified Specialist in Family Law by the State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization. With more than 20 years of experience as a family law attorney, she has spent much of her career representing victims of domestic violence. That background shapes how she leads the Women’s Clinic, which serves women, men and families on matters including domestic violence restraining orders, dissolution, support and child custody cases, with particular attention to survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking. Given the complex emotional demands of these kinds of cases, Levin emphasizes the need to come equipped with “the

ADVOCATING FOR IMMIGRANTS AT THE BORDER AND BEYOND San Diego’s position on the U.S.-Mexico border has always made immigration law both urgent and personal. The Immigration Clinic has been operating here since 1984, and today it handles the full range of issues facing immigrants in the region: work authorization, asylum cases, assistance for victims of crime and domestic violence, and representation in immigration court and before the Board of Immigration Appeals. Tammy Lin ’06 (JD), professor of practice and supervising attorney for the clinic, joined the faculty in 2022 after building the immigration asylum program at the nonprofit Jewish Family Service of San Diego and running her own practice. In 2025, as arrests and deportations increased significantly, the clinic received funding to hire additional staff attorneys and elevate Lin to a full-time professor of practice. The clinic now enrolls 10 students each semester, with returning students pushing that number higher. “My vision is that this clinic becomes the preeminent border clinic in the United States,” Lin said. The cases can take years to resolve, meaning students often inherit work started by someone who graduated before them. For example, Amber Rahim ’26 (JD) picked up an asylum case involving a USD graduate from Myanmar that previous clinical interns had managed across multiple semesters. When U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services scheduled an interview with the client during the Fall 2025 semester, Rahim prepared her for it and accompanied her to the appointment. Ultimately, Rahim was the one who delivered the argument for her client’s asylum.

HELPING TENANTS STAY IN THEIR HOMES The Housing Rights Clinic was established in 2022 by former USD faculty member Alysson Snow, who brought more than a decade of experience representing consumers and tenants at the Legal Aid Society of San Diego. She had seen firsthand what happens to people who face the legal system without representation. But it wasn’t until she started taking students to court that the scale of the problem came into focus. Most landlords have representation on their side, but about 80% of tenants facing eviction show up to court without a lawyer. The clinic’s response was the creation of the Eviction Negotiation Program, launched in June 2025. On days when eviction cases are heard at the San Diego County Superior Courthouse, clinic students and supervising attorneys position themselves outside Department 501 and approach unrepresented tenants before their cases are called. They conduct an intake, review the materials and negotiate, all before noon. The clinic has also secured space at the San Diego Law Library, just a block from the courthouse, where students

“When I’m talking to clients, I can tell how scared they are. It feels good to know I’ve helped make a change in their lives.” ALIENOR ALEXANDER, 3L, WOMEN’S LEGAL CLINIC INTERN

can meet with clients confidentially. It’s an effective model built for the standing judicial order that requires parties to negotiate before seeing a judge — and that means the moment the clinic steps in is precisely when it matters most. In 2025 alone, the program assisted 153 households. Forty-seven families remained in their homes. Another 71 secured additional time to relocate without immediate displacement. Students negotiated 89 cases and helped save tenants more than $523,000 in claimed housing debt. The human reality behind those numbers stays with the students long after they finish their work at the clinic. Makenna Haskill ’26 (JD), who received the Housing Rights Clinic’s graduation award this year, wrote in her case reflection: “It wasn’t just the legal issues that made it unforgettable. It was the sheer humanity of it. Watching someone so vulnerable have to fight so hard for something as basic as a roof over their head was deeply unsettling. But what stood out to me wasn’t the injustice. It was the response. We provided more than just legal assistance. We approached each case with genuine concern for the person behind it.”

WORKING TO FREE THE INNOCENT

law school. The Innocence Clinic was the result, operating in partnership with The Innocence Center, an independent nonprofit dedicated to freeing wrongfully convicted people from prison. The work is painstaking. In a typical year, the clinic might receive 2,000 requests for help. Around 100 move to serious investigation. Two or three innocent people might ultimately walk free. Students review thousands of pages of court records and police files, looking for red flags that include eyewitness identification issues, junk science, ineffective counsel and government misconduct. It takes time and dedication, but the reward is well worth the effort. As Brooks said, “There is no better service for a lawyer to engage in than freeing innocent people from prison.”

In January 2026, USD Law opened its 13th clinic. The launch coincided with Wrongful Conviction Day, and the event at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice Theatre drew an overflow crowd that included Amanda Knox, whom Professor Justin Brooks called the most famous exoneree in the world. Brooks cofounded and directed the California Innocence Project from 1999 to 2023, a program that freed more than 40 innocent people who together had served more than 500 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. He joined USD’s faculty in 2023 and was immediately lobbied by students to start an innocence organization at the

WATCH THE PODCAST episode of At the Edge of It All featuring Joe Villaseñor ’09 (JD) and Ian Pike ’19 (JD). sandiego.edu/usd-civil-clinic

14 | University of San Diego Magazine

sandiego.edu | 15