From a Central Park clean up led by Fordham’s Environmental Law Advocates to a workshop on voter suppression conducted by Fordham Law Advocates for Voter Rights in partnership with the New York Civil Liberties Union, students kicked off the 2024-25 academic year with an array of volunteer activities for Public Service Day.
Public Service Day is an annual tradition that takes place before the start of the fall semester. Students had their choice of participating in 10 different projects on campus and at sites around New York City. This year, the Suspension Representation Project offered a new advocate training to represent public school students in superintendent’s suspension hearings, allowing students to develop their legal skills by interviewing clients and conducting direct and cross-examinations. Meanwhile, in the Bronx, members of the Black Law Students Association worked with a local nonprofit to prepare free meals for community members as well as stocking shelves in the food pantry.
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Advocates for Trans* Law Students (ATLS) and OUTLaws also held a training at Bluestockings bookstore on how to file name change petitions for trans and nonbinary people. The event provided an opportunity for “meeting new students and helping the queer community,” said ATLS organizers in a recent Instagram post.
“Public Service Day is the first demonstration of our students’ ability and efforts,” said Mia Jackson-Rosenthal, director of public interest student engagement and counseling at Fordham Law’s Public Interest Resource Center. “It’s a tradition that speaks to Fordham’s mission, and it sets the tone for new students, showing them that they are encouraged to serve but they should feel empowered to organize.”
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First-year student Ree Ree Li ’27 attended a legal observer training program hosted by Fordham Law’s National Lawyers Guild (NLG) chapter. Li studied political science during her undergraduate degree and said she was drawn to the training because she was interested in learning more about the role legal observers play at protests.
“Since it was my first time at the Law School, I really enjoyed being in a room with fellow student activists who cared about protecting people’s right to protest,” Li said.
Elizabeth Spitzenberger ’26, who organized the training, said she hoped participants “not only gained legal observation skills, but also received a refresher on their own civil rights during police interactions with demonstrators.”
“By becoming legal observers, Fordham Law students can help wrongfully arrested or brutalized demonstrators avoid incarceration and reach settlements when their civil rights have been violated,” Spitzenberger added. “The Fordham NLG chapter has held legal observer training in the past as a way for new law students to get involved in protecting civil rights, so we are happy we could continue providing training for Public Service Day.”
Haydé Ladham, an LL.M. student in Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law, described her Public Service Day experience as an “incredible opportunity” to start off her time at Fordham Law. “I contributed to the Immigration Advocacy Project, where we prepared welcome kits for newly arrived migrants, providing essential goods, resources, and legal support,” Ladham wrote in a post on LinkedIn. The project was a collaboration between the Latin American Law Students Association and Fordham Women of Color Collective.
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“I hope students learn something new about a cause or public interest sector and that they walk away understanding the importance of taking time to give back to their community,” said Jackson-Rosenthal of this year’s Public Service Day. “Through this brief period of service with peers, they can begin to see themselves as part of the Fordham community.”
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