This year’s Public Service Day, hosted by the Public Interest Resource Center (PIRC) and held on Aug. 20 as part of first-year orientation, featured a variety of activities for first-year students to get involved in across the city, including virtual educational events and in-person service opportunities.
In total,159 students participated in 12 student-led projects, according to Mia Jackson-Rosenthal, PIRC’s director of student engagement and counseling.
“Public Service Day was, in my estimation, a tremendous success,” said Jackson-Rosenthal. “Based on the turnout, it is clear that students are committed to Fordham Law’s motto of being ‘In the service of others.’”
Fordham Law students assist at a mobile legal help desk in Harlem in an event sponsored by the Fordham Christian Fellowship (FCF).
Free Legal Services in Harlem
For one of the day’s activities, the student-run Fordham Christian Fellowship (FCF) partnered with Open Hands Legal Services, which provides free legal services to low-income people through one of the city’s only mobile legal aid desks.
Fordham Law students started bright and early with an 8 a.m. training session at the Law School, followed by a trip to the clinic location in Central Harlem. Five Fordham Law students attended the event, with several saying they wanted to return to Open Hands and remain involved.
“Public Service Day is important because it sets students in the right frame of mind as they enter law school,” said Ashlyn Phelps ’24, president of FCF. “Public service is at the core of what we do as lawyers, and something I hope all law students are interested in.”
Phelps’s own experience with last year’s Public Service Day included a training with the National Lawyers Guild, which allowed her to volunteer as a legal observer at a housing protest later that semester, an experience which she says was valuable to her.
BLSA President Afrika Owes ’24 assists with food donations at Next Step Community Church.
Petition Signing on Immigration Legislation
The Immigration Advocacy Project (IAP) held a presentation and virtual petition signing event hosted by IAP Programming and Events Coordinator Karen Normil ’24.
Participants learned about the issues facing undocumented farm workers and wrote messages to lawmakers advocating for the passage of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, as well as the renewal of the Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929.
The event demonstrated how students could get involved in important issues affecting their communities without having to necessarily attend in-person activities or be an expert in a particular type of law.
“IAP provides different avenues for people to be engaged, whether that’s at a clinic or sitting at your computer writing [messages to lawmakers],” Normil said. “I think it’s important, no matter what type of lawyer you want to be, to have that community mindset.”
South Asian and Muslim Social Justice Advocacy
The South Asian Law Students Association (SALSA) and the Muslim Law Students Association Board (MLSA) held an event that focused on legal issues facing the South Asian and Muslim communities in New York City, including discussions on the taxi medallion crisis, housing precarity, and domestic violence.
“We want to encourage 1Ls to have a zealous commitment to community advocacy that is ‘for us, by us,’” says Shivani Parikh ’24, the advocacy and DEI chair for SALSA. “We need to think from the outset about how we can utilize our skills and privileges as lawyers to push for systemic change.”
The presentation was meant to be followed by a phone banking session advocating for the release of Asim Ghafoor, an American lawyer who had been detained in the United Arab Emirates for several weeks. However, Ghafoor was released from detention unexpectedly in mid-August, and the phone banking event was replaced by a group discussion.
Members of Fordham Law’s Latin American Law Students Association worked with Bushwick Ayuda Mutua in Brooklyn to distribute food and goods to the community.
Mutual Aid and Public Service
Other events involved on-site work, such as an initiative that partnered Fordham Law’s Latin American Law Students Association (LALSA) and Bushwick-based community organization Bushwick Ayuda Mutua, with students assisting with distributing food and other essential items to community members.
Elsewhere in Brooklyn, students volunteered their time at a community food pantry at Next Step Community Church in Boerum Hill, in an event sponsored by Fordham Law’s Black Law Students Association (BLSA).
