HISTORY OF ALTERNATIVE SPRING BREAK

THE FIRST ALTERNATIVE SPRING BREAK. Alternative Spring Break (ASB) began in the spring of 2010 when fifteen U of M law students traveled to Miami after the Haiti earthquake to help Haitians stranded in the U.S. apply for temporary protected status. These students returned to Memphis motivated to help local Memphians in need of quality legal services. (1 Track; 15 Law Students)

BRINGING THE IMPACT OF LAW STUDENT SERVICE BACK TO MEMPHIS. In the spring of 2011, PALS hosted ASB at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of law. Under the supervision of attorneys, thirty-seven law students from eight law schools served in three areas or tracks, Pro Se Divorce, Advance Directives, and Non-Profit Organizations. Of the thirty-seven students who participated, twenty were from the U of M. In the pro se divorce track, students assisted couples with no joint property or kids to file pro se divorces. In the advance directives track, students traveled to nursing homes and senior centers to prepare legal documents such as powers of attorney, health care surrogacies, and wills. Students participating in the nonprofit advocacy track worked on different law-related projects with Court-Appointed Special Advocates, Literacy Mid-South, and the RISE Foundation. (3 Tracks; 37 Law Students)

DEPLOYING LAW STUDENTS TO DRAFT LEGISLATION. The Third Annual Alternative Spring Break took place from March 5-9, 2012. PALS hosted sixty-two students, twenty-nine from the U of M, who participated in four tracks which were Pro Se Divorce, Advance Directives, Legislative Drafting, and Immigration. The two new tracks, Legislative Drafting and Immigration, were added to directly respond to the need in Memphis and allow more student participation. Students working in the Legislative Drafting Track partnered with three organizations to draft legislation regarding human trafficking, post-civil commitment proceedings, and predatory lending. The Immigration Track took place over three weeks with the University of Tennessee College of Law and the University of Mississippi College of Law partnering to finish the second and third weeks. Students in the Immigration Track processed U-Visa applications for five victims of serious domestic violence who cooperated with law enforcement. Morris Dees, the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, was the keynote speaker at the 2012 ASB Luncheon. Mr. Dees spoke to the students about his humble roots in rural Alabama, his formative years as a civil rights lawyer, and his current efforts to curtail discrimination against immigrants. (4 Tracks; 62 law students)

TAKING IT TO THE STREETS. The Fourth Annual ASB, featuring a Civil Rights theme and new Education Series, took place from March 11-15, 2013. This year, ASB added even more tracks, including "Street Court" where students partnered with the Shelby County Public Defender's office to expunge outstanding court fees for homeless individuals. Street Court helped over seventy individuals receive legal counseling so that their issues would not longer be barriers to finding housing and jobs. Over forty-eight law students from seven schools served over one-hundred forty-five clients. ASB 2013 featured keynote speaker Mike Cody, who represented Dr. Martin Luther King when the City of Memphis attempted to stop the sanitation workers' march in Memphis. (6 Tracks; 48 law students)

IDENTIFYING AND PRIORITIZING VULNERABLE POPULATIONS. The Fifth Annual ASB was held in March 2014 and had a Juvenile Justice theme. Seventy three students participated and PALS leadership featured seven tracks including Family Law, Elder Law, Criminal Law, Immigration, Juvenile Justice, Research & Writing, and Veterans Affairs which was developed in response to the American Bar Association's (ABA) identification of veterans as a critically underrepresented whose legal needs often go unmet. Law students served over 165 clients. Keynote speakers at the awards banquet were Jonathan Steen, Tennessee Bar Association President, John Pollock of the Public Justice Center's National Coalition for the Civil Right to Counsel. (7 Tracks; 73 law students)

LOOKING BACK AND PLANNING FORWARD. The Sixth Annual ASB was held in March of 2015 and the theme was "Enhancing the Legacy: From Civil Rights to Human Rights. PALS leadership featured five tracks including Criminal Law in cooperation with the Shelby County Public Defender's Office. The Family Law Track assisted with pro se divorces. The Research and Writing Track focused on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender issues. While the Immigration Track worked in concert Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and the Community Legal Center (CLC) to handle immigrant needs. Seventy-three Students volunteered pro bono hours to these four tracks. (5 Tracks; 73 Law Students)

LEGAL SOLUTIONS TO STRUCTURAL DISORGANIZATION. The Seventh Annual ASB 2016 theme was Community Building and Blight Removal. PALS featured seven tracks including Elder Law, Immigration Law, Juvenile Track, Veterans Track, Criminal Defense, Family Law, which for the first time prepared and filed injunctions for protections of victims of domestic violence, and Research & Writing, which drafted several pieces of draft legislation to be presented to the appropriate legislative bodies for consideration. (7 Tracks)

ACTIVATING LAW STUDENTS TOWARDS PREVENTIVE LEGAL SOLUTIONS. The Eighth Annual ASB was held in March of 2017 and the theme was "Breaking the School to Prison Pipeline." PALS Leadership focused on seven tracks including Juvenile Law, Family Law, Criminal Law, Immigration, Elder Law, Veterans Law, Research & Writing and Criminal Law which processed over six hundred applications to expunge criminal non-convictions from Memphians records. All the tracks finished off ASB by working on a group service project identifying blight in downtown Memphis. (7 Tracks; 65 Law Students)

CONSIDERING LEGAL ISSUES IN THE CONTEXT OF MENTAL HEALTH. The Ninth Annual ASB is scheduled for March 5th through 8th 2018 and the theme is Averting Crisis: Mental Health Interventions for Improving Our Justice System. ASB 2018 is the biggest ever, with eighty-two participants, from seven different law schools, featuring eight tracks. The eight tracks include the Research and Writing Track which will prepare a publishable article consistent with the ASB theme, mental health legal interventions for improving our justice system. In the Criminal Law Track law students will perform criminal expungements in coordination with Just City, a non-profit that writes petitions, files, and pays the filing fees for expungements for qualified populations convicted of qualifying crimes. The Juvenile Law Track will offer service on the Foster Care Review Board (FCRB) and will interview children, families, and others who interact with the foster children, to make recommendations for their continued care. The Elder Law Track will travel to different senior community and residency facilities to draft living wills, appointments of financial and healthcare agents, and durable powers of attorney. The Veterans Clinic Track will assist veterans with initial disability claims, appellate writing, and conduct a veterans clinic to help with other civil claims. The Immigration Track will meet with clients in the Memphis Law Clinic to help with DACA and Naturalization legal matters. The Family Law Track will assist clients with pro se divorces and domestic abuse situations. Finally, the new Health Law Track will perform legal checkups on clients in a medical-legal partnership clinic, and facilitate service delivery to alleviate legal health issues that may be impacting physical or mental health. The keynote speaker for the culmination event will be the Honorable Judge Gerald Skahan who works in the Shelby County General Sessions Court, and who was the key individual in bringing a diversionary Mental Health Court to Memphis, the Court over which he now also presides. (8 Tracks; 80 Law Students; 2624 Pro Bono Hours)