By Alex Farmer, Harvard Law School Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs’ blog
May 1st, 2019
Over the course of the school semester, Krista Oehlke ’20 worked as a student attorney at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic (HIRC), where, with the help of a supervisor and another student attorney, she represented a client seeking asylum. During Spring Break, Oehlke travelled to the Mexico-Texas border and helped three women detained at an immigration center in Texas complete applications for asylum and receive translation assistance for declarations that support their claims. “HIRC prepared me extremely well for this work,” she said. “I was able to help asylum seekers in a very concrete way.”
Oehlke was one of 36 Harvard Law students who participated this year in the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs’ spring break pro bono program. Every year, a group of students spend their spring break working in legal organizations in the Boston area and across the United States and Puerto Rico, often responding to crises or disasters in local areas. The time spent outside of the halls of the law school can be re-energizing and reinforce the skills students learn in the classroom.