Len Rieser is Program Coordinator for the Sheller Center for Social Justice, and also teaches the Access to Justice Clinic and Education Law. Before coming to the Sheller Center in 2014, Len was Executive Director of the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania (ELC-PA), where he spent a long career advocating for the legal rights of children in Pennsylvania’s public education system. The Public Interest Section of the Philadelphia Bar Association awarded Len its “Bending the Arc Award” in 2010.
Prior to working at ELC-PA, Len was a trial attorney in the Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division, U. S. Department of Justice, focusing on rights of children and adults with disabilities and rights of incarcerated persons. Len has also taught in the Civil Practice Clinic of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Much of Len’s current work at Temple concerns the civil “justice gap,” i.e., the fact that low- and even moderate-income people now routinely confront hugely significant issues – child custody, consumer debt, evictions, public benefits, immigration, and more – without legal assistance. Len’s article in the Temple Law Review, Teaching Access to Justice, explains more about the justice gap and why it should be of concern to law students. He is a member of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Civil Gideon and Access to Justice Task Force and the national Self-Represented Litigation Network.
Len is interested in supporting students interested in public-interest work, whether as a full-time profession or as an aspect of their careers.