Andy and Gwen Stern Community Lawyering Clinic

Students work with and advocate on behalf of clients in need of legal services, referrals and other forms of advocacy in Drexel’s neighboring communities through the Kline School of Law’s Andy and Gwen Stern Community Lawyering Clinic.

Advocacy that Works

Located in Drexel's Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships, the clinic allows students to serve as true community lawyers, addressing a variety of issues that affect Drexel’s neighbors in Mantua and Powelton Village.

Students represent individual clients and families facing legal issues, provide training to community residents who face common problems and publish reports that advocate for policy changes that would promote justice and equality for Drexel’s neighbors.

We have helped residents by:

Restoring Social Security benefits to disabled residents
Preventing foreclosures for low-income homeowners
Restoring utilities for senior citizens
Obtaining property titles for people who inherited their homes
Filing employment discrimination claims.

Projects have included:

Publishing Pandemic in PA’s Prisons, which recommends the release of vulnerable and elderly incarcerated individuals in an attempt to stop COVID-19 from running rampant across the state
Filing an amicus brief in support of the ACLU’s case challenging the systemic abuses of cash bail in Philadelphia
Conducting workshops to teach local residents about topics such as their rights as job applicants and ways to clear complications in property title
Creating Zoning Matters, an educational handbook for community members that explains important aspects of the zoning process
Publishing a report on the lack of running water in residents’ homes, which was presented at a public hearing convened by the City of Philadelphia and covered by NBC10
Educating community members about the process for voicing concerns about development projects in their neighborhood
Recommending reforms to the compassionate release law that permits early release of incarcerated individuals who are terminally ill
Filing a report on police shootings in Philadelphia with a United Nations committee.

Community Resources

Forms & Information

Contact the Clinic

Email: clc@drexel.edu
Phone: 215-571-4019 or 215-571-4020

Rachel E. Lopez

Director of the Andy and Gwen Stern Community Lawyering Clinic

Rachel López is an Associate Professor of Law at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law at Drexel University and the Director of the Andy and Gwen Stern Community Lawyering Clinic. She is currently a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She has also held visiting fellowships at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge, the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School, and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. In 2016, Professor López researched transitional justice in Guatemala and Spain as a Fulbright Scholar. From 2015 to 2019, she served as a Commissioner on the Pennsylvania Sentencing Commission, as an appointee of Governor Tom Wolf. Read Rachel's full bio.

Susan Brooks

Acting Director of the Andy and Gwen Stern Community Lawyering Clinic

Susan Brooks has nearly 30 years of experience as an educator, creative scholar, facilitator, and presenter in the areas of experiential learning, professional development, community-based learning, and cross-cultural communication. Since 2007 she has been a Professor of Law at Drexel University Kline School of Law in Philadelphia, PA, and served as the school’s inaugural Associate Dean for Experiential Learning. She has established numerous university-community collaborations, including co-founding the law school’s Andy and Gwen Stern Community Lawyering Clinic, where she is currently the Acting Director. Read Susan's full bio.