MARCH 3, 2009  |  LAW PRACTICE   

From Tijuana to Compton, via Harvard Law    

 by Martin Berg

(Excerpt. For the entire article, contact the Daily Journal.)

Banks turning into zombies, markets careening in free fall, law firms discarding lawyers, nonprofits pummeled, fear and gloom everywhere.

Where to go for a little jolt of hope and inspiration?

How about Compton?

That's where I met Luz Herrera, in a storefront office in a former deli on a dreary stretch of East Compton Boulevard next to a beauty parlor.

She's just your typical Tijuana-born, East L.A.-raised, Harvard Law School-educated Big Law refugee who decides to open a solo practice aimed at the working poor and entrepreneurial immigrants in southeastern Los Angeles County.

And then when she decides to launch a nonprofit, she gets decorating help on television from the "Queer Eye for the Straight Girl" reality show.

Herrera, who's 36, is part of the fledgling phenomenon known as "low bono" legal service groups. She started Community Lawyers Inc. to mentor students, offer a self-help center and hook up lawyers who pledge to offer low-cost legal services with those who don't qualify for Legal Aid but can't afford to pay market rates.

The organization officially opened the doors to its legal access center Jan. 30.

While she's focusing on getting Community Lawyers geared up, she's also been back to Harvard Law to teach, as well as taking on teaching assignments at Chapman University and Thomas Jefferson law schools, while she serves on the ABA Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services.

Herrera has a lot on her plate.

While she wants to serve the needs of Compton and the surrounding area she also has her eye on helping to nurture a model of legal services in which sole practitioners could charge modest fees and provide service to a woefully under-served chunk of the population. That includes small business people who need transactional work, and many undocumented people whom Legal Aid is prohibited from helping.

.Community Lawyers' self-help clinics are built on the same approach as those in courthouses with one important difference - the courthouse clinics are open during business hours, when many working people are at their jobs. Community Lawyers will offer self-help evenings and weekends.
 

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(Excerpt. For the entire article, contact the Daily Journal.)

For more information on Community Lawyers, call 310-635-8182.