Program Schedule

 

Welcoming Remarks (9am – 9:30am PST)
Morris Ratner, Provost & Academic Dean, UC Law SF
Thalia González, Co-Director Center for Racial and Economic Justice, UC Law SF

 

Debt-Free Justice Movement (9:30am – 10:45am PST)
Panelists will discuss legal and policy advocacy to reduce and restrict civil and criminal fines and penalties specific to school attendance, truancy, and conduct. Speakers will include:
• Stephanie Campos-Bui, Berkeley Law
• Angie Jimenez, National Center for Youth Law, Justice and Equity Team
• Cara McClellan, Penn Carey Law
• Michelle Lau, San Francisco Financial Justice Project
• Moderated by: Prithika Balakrishnan, UC Law SF

 

BREAK / REFLECTION (10:45am – 11am PST)

 

Fine Free Schools Movement (11am – 12:15pm PST)
Panelists will discuss research and advocacy in Pennsylvania and Missouri to address pervasiveness and harm of school-based fines and fees. Speakers for this panel:
• Hopey Fink, Legal Services of Missouri, Education Justice Program
• Tiffany Nelson, Parent in and alumna of Saint Louis Public Schools
• Thalia González, UC Law SF
• Paige Joki, Education Law Center-PA
• Moderated by: Shauna Marshall, UC Law SF

 

LUNCH / REFLECTION (12:15pm – 12:45pm PST)

 

Advancing Change (12:45 – 2:30pm PST)
Roundtable working session with panelists and attendees to explore synergies between advocacy between systems, examine emerging local and state-level interventions, and strategize for collective action at local and national levels. Discussants will include:
• Amanda Schneider, Legal Services of Missouri, Education Justice Program
• Jasmine Richardson-Rushin, National Center for Youth Law, Justice and Equity Team
• Missouri NAACP Youth Council
• Gus Patel-Tupper, Berkeley Law
• Cameron Clark, Berkeley Law
• Facilitated by: Thalia González, UC Law SF

 

Panelists:

Stephanie Campos-Bui (she/her)
Title: Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, Berkeley Law
Affiliation: University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
Bio: Stephanie Campos-Bui is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and co-director of the Policy Advocacy Clinic at Berkeley Law where she supervises interdisciplinary teams of law and public policy students in the pursuit of non-litigation strategies to address systemic racial, economic, and social injustice. Her research and advocacy focus on the impact that fees, fines, restitution, and bail have on communities of color. She has co-authored several reports including Making Families Pay: The Harmful, Unlawful, and Costly Practice of Charging Juvenile Administrative Fees in California (2017), Fee Abolition and the Promise of Debt-Free Justice for Young People and their Families in California (2019), and Coming Up Short: The Unrealized Promise of In re Humphrey (2022), and has worked in coalition with community groups across multiple states on successful fee and fine abolition campaigns in the juvenile and criminal injustice systems.

 

Cameron D. Clark (he/they)
Title: Supervising Attorney in the Policy Advocacy Clinic
Affiliation: University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
Bio: Cameron D. Clark (he/they) is a Supervising Attorney in the Policy Advocacy Clinic at Berkeley Law and co-coordinator of Debt Free Justice, a nationwide campaign to repeal administrative fines and fees imposed on youth who are involved in the criminal legal system. Working with the Debt Free Justice partners in Illinois, Cam has supported legislative campaigns to end the assessment of juvenile fees and fines, discharge unpaid juvenile court debt, and end criminal financial penalties for school-based misconduct. Cam grew up in Houston and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Texas.

 

Hopey Fink (she/her)
Title: Staff Attorney
Affiliation: Education Justice Program, Legal Services of Eastern Missouri
Bio: Hopey Fink works to advance education equity in Missouri using a community lawyering model and a racial justice lens. A graduate of public high school, Georgetown University, and Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, Hopey began her career as an education attorney in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was illuminating and exacerbating disparities in the education landscape. She previously spent several years working in and alongside tribal communities, including as an educator, which also continues to inform her advocacy for systems change. 

Angie Jiménez (she/her/ella)
Title: Directing Attorney, Justice and Equity Team
Affiliation: National Center for Youth Law
Bio: Angie supports the aims of the Debt Free Justice Campaign, whose mission to abolish fines and fees imposed on youth. She works to build coalitions and advocate for policy reform efforts in several states to disrupt harmful system practices that target youth and youth of color. Angie has over 15 years of combined experience of legal advocacy, communications, and public policy. Among her roles includes serving as Policy and Communications director at the Illinois Collaboration on Youth, a Guardian ad Litem at Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, Vice President of Grants, Legal, and Compliance at Aunt Martha’s Health and Wellness, and Staff Attorney at FRIENDS, Inc.

 

Paige Joki (she/her)
Title: Staff Attorney and Leader of the Black Girls Education Justice Initiative at Education Law Center-PA
Affiliation: Education Law Center-PA
Bio: Paige Joki is a staff attorney at the Education Law Center-PA, where she represents students, conducts trainings, and advocates to address the individual and systemic educational barriers facing students in Pennsylvania. She is responsible for leading the Education Law Center’s Black Girls’ Education Justice initiatives. Paige joined ELC’s staff in 2017 as an Independence Foundation Public Interest Law Fellow, with a focus on eliminating individual and systemic barriers to quality education for students experiencing homelessness in the Philadelphia region. Paige is the proud inaugural winner of the Temple Law’s Student Public Interest Network’s (SPIN) 2022 Public Interest Impact award for her impactful legal advocacy.”

 

Michelle Lau (she/her)
Title: Acting Director of the Financial Justice Project
Affiliation: The Financial Justice Project, Office of the Treasurer for the City and County of San Francisco
Bio:Michelle Lau is the Acting Director of The Financial Justice Project in the Office of the Treasurer for the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco is the first city in the nation to launch a Financial Justice Project to assess and reform how fines, fees, and financial penalties impact the city’s low-income communities of color. In this role, she conducts research on fine and fee pain points to assess and advance potential reforms locally and statewide in California, designs and implements discounts and alternatives to fine and fees, and amplifies The Financial Justice Project’s communications strategy. Prior to her work with the City, Michelle worked as a civic sector consultant where she partnered with government agencies, foundations, and not-for-profit organizations. Michelle holds a Master of Public Policy from UC Berkeley and an undergraduate degree from Princeton University.

 

Cara McClellan (she/her)
Title: Director of the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic and Practice Associate Professor of Law
Affiliation: University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
Bio: Cara McClellan is the Founding Director and Practice Associate Professor of the Advocacy for Racial and Civil (ARC) Justice Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, which provides students with hands-on experience working in civil rights litigation and policy advocacy around systemic racism. Prior to this role, McClellan was Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., where her work focused on increasing education equity and ending the criminalization of Black people.

Tiffany Nelson (she/her)
Title: Adult Nurse Practitioner
Bio: Tiffany Nelson is an Adult Nurse Practitioner in Missouri and a parent in and alumna of Saint Louis Public Schools. She works with parents and children to advocate for themselves in relation to matters directly involving the school system such as bullying and the right to access technology for education.

 

Gus Patel-Tupper (he/him)
Title: Supervising Attorney, Policy Advocacy Clinic
Affiliation: University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
Bio: Gus Patel-Tupper supports projects to reduce the harm the criminal legal system causes our communities and to build responses to harm that do not involve the legal system. He supervises students working on local partners’ policy goals in Western states.

 

Jasmine Richardson-Rushin (she/her)
Title: Attorney, Justice and Equity Team
Affiliation: National Center for Youth Law
Bio: Jasmine Richardson-Rushin is an Attorney on the National Center for Youth Law’s Justice and Equity team. Jasmine works on policy reform to eliminate school-to-prison pipeline, as well as juvenile fines and fees through the Debt Free Justice Campaign. Prior to joining the Justice and Equity Team, Jasmine worked directly with youth and families at the Maryland Office of the Public Defender where she served as an assistant public defender in the juvenile division. A Washington D.C. native, Jasmine currently lives in Maryland with her husband Jared and beautiful daughter Amari. Outside of work, Jasmine enjoys singing, writing music, and baking treats with her nieces.

 

Amanda J. Schneider (she/her)
Title: Managing Attorney, Health Justice Initiative, Education Justice Program
Affiliation: Legal Services of Eastern Missouri
Bio: Amanda J. Schneider (she/her) has served as the Managing Attorney of Legal Services of Eastern Missouri’s Education Justice Program since 2019. Amanda’s expertise is in issues of education equity and attacking the school-to-prison pipeline in particular on the issues of school enrollment for students experiencing homelessness and students in foster care and school discipline. Amanda began her career as the first William G. Guerri Chair Attorney in the Children’s Legal Alliance at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, practicing in education and special education law, providing direct legal representation for nearly a decade to individual students in the areas of school enrollment, discipline, and special education. She graduated magna cum laude from Indiana University-Bloomington with bachelor’s degrees in English Literature and Sociology and from Indiana University-Bloomington’s School of Law in 2006. She is a first-generation college graduate and the first in her family to attend law school.

 

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