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Liz Booth L’13 strives to empower survivors of domestic and sexual violence

April 04, 2014

Liz Booth discusses her work with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, working to expand awareness of local protections for tenants who have experienced domestic violence and sexual violence.
Liz Booth, L’13, was awarded the 2013 S. Gerald Litvin & Dennis R. Suplee Fellowship. Partnering with Community Legal Services (CLS), Booth’s project Housing Protection for Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence,works to protect and empower survivors of domestic violence and sexual violence in Philadelphia in enforcing their tenant rights, and engage the local advocacy community to expand available support for survivors experiencing landlord-tenant issues. Working closely with CLS and community partners, she encourages enforcement of existing legal protections for tenants experiencing domestic or sexual violence and help vulnerable individuals maintain stability and prevent homelessness.
 
 

 

Transcript

My name is Liz Booth and I am currently a fellow at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia. I graduated from Penn Law in 2013.

Through my fellowship project, I am seeking to expand awareness of local protections for tenants who have experienced domestic violence and sexual violence. So, I am doing community outreach and education to local organizations and also representing low income tenants in eviction proceedings and providing them with other legal assistance and support.

I had interned at CLS my 2L summer, so I had worked with the attorneys that am I working with now as an intern. This seemed like a good area for expanding the work that they were already doing and work that I had already had experience doing with them as an intern.

Having done some direct service work before law school is what really inspired me to pursue this career. Seeing the struggles that a lot of low income and marginalized populations face in the legal system made me want to be in the position to help make their voices heard in that system and be able to access justice. So, being able to work with individual people and help them solve their legal problems is really a driving force in what inspires me to do this work. Additionally, I find that the community around public interest work is such a supportive and exciting community to be a part of. You meet a lot of really inspiring people who are doing a lot of good and that’s something thats really great to be a part of.

One of the best things about my experience at Penn Law was the public interest student and larger community. I knew before I came to law school from having looking at the admissions brochures that there were pro bono projects that I could be part of, there were clinics that I could do, and they were definitely an instrumental part of my experience as well. But, having the community of fellow students who were interested in the same issues as I was as well as other issues that I didn’t know as much about. And I definitely felt a lot of camaraderie with the other public interest students that I got to know and felt a lot of support from both fellow students and alums when I was going through my job search process and found that everyone, even people who were applying to the same job as me, we always willing to help me and provide me support when I needed it.

Transcript edited for length.