Social Justice Lawyering Clinic

Sheller Center report featured at meeting of Philly’s new “Land Stewards Union”

A research report by students in the Center’s Social Justice Lawyering Clinic, Close to Home: Supporting the Neighborhood Residents Who Are Reviving Philadelphia’s Vacant Side Yards, played a prominent role at a citywide meeting of Philly’s Land Stewards Union on April 18, 2026.

Claire Hirschberg, L 25 (center), describes the researchers’ findings.

The report found that the City benefits from the unpaid work of hundreds of people who put time, energy and money into caring for neglected, tax-delinquent land near their homes. In theory, these land stewards should be able to look to the Philadelphia Land Bank for help in acquiring the properties that they’ve stewarded. But in practice, the Land Bank has largely failed to provide that help, and longtime land stewards — who are most often people of color in Philly’s lower-income neighborhoods — are losing properties to developers without ever being given the opportunity to try to acquire them.

One of the report’s authors, Claire Hirschberg L ’25, described the researchers’ findings and recommendations for changes in Land Bank and City policy. For more, check out news reports by WHYY and the Inquirer.

Update on Language Access in the Pennsylvania Courts

Today, the Sheller Center is releasing Justice on Paper: Gaps Between Language Access and Policy in Pennsylvania. This report focuses on how the Pennsylvania courts are addressing limited English proficient (LEP) individuals who use the state court system to defend and enforce important rights as tenants, domestic violence victims, and parents. Pranav Ramesh (‘26), Natalia Mahecha Baron (‘26), and Franchesca Johnson (‘26), who authored the report, found that the Pennsylvania courts have both made substantial progress and failed to live up to the statewide language access plan (LAP) issued by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2017. Their investigation is based on surveys with attorneys and community advocates, student in-court observations, and interviews with court staff and advocates.

The report concludes with recommendations of how the Pennsylvania courts could even further improve language access for LEP individuals by comparatively looking at how other jurisdictions approached the implementation of their language access policies. The Sheller Center has a history of working on language access issues in the Pennsylvania courts, with its earlier reports, Barriers to Justice for Non-English Speakers in Pennsylvania Courts and Unfinished Business, published prior to the issuance of the statewide LAP.

Moshannon Valley Processing Center

Today, the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic (SJLC) publishes In the Shadow of the Valley: The Unnecessary Confinement and Dehumanizing Conditions of People in Immigration Detention at Moshannon Valley Processing Center. This report is the first to comprehensively investigate conditions at Moshannon, the largest facility in the Northeast that detains immigrants who are awaiting the processing of their deportation cases. It is written by Cristina Isabel de Arana (’24), Alex Leone (‘25), and Bianca Taipe (’25), law students in the SJLC.

The report is based on interviews conducted by a coalition of community-based organizations, law school clinics, and legal nonprofits who made site visits to the newly opened detention facility in Centre County, Pennsylvania in 2023. People who are detained at Moshannon are being held under punitive, inhumane, and dangerous conditions. They have tightly controlled schedules, live in a “pod” with 60-70 other people, wear brightly colored jumpsuits, and are restricted from accessing the outside world. Further, people at Moshannon have reported issues ranging from the inability to get medical care to physical and psychological abuse by staff. Despite Moshannon’s “conversion” into an immigration detention facility, it operates more like the former federal prison that it once was.

Immigration detention facilities like Moshannon, which cost millions of dollars per month to operate, have not created a fairer, safer, or more efficient immigration system. Instead, detaining immigrants is contrary to this country’s ideals of fairness, freedom, and opportunity. Rather than piecemeal reforms for an already broken system, the government needs to consider alternatives, such as community-based case management systems that can work with people to screen, process, and ensure their attendance at immigration court. For this reason, the report calls for the closure of Moshannon.

See news coverage of the report on WHYY, States’ Newsroom, and Telemundo.

Link to PDF

A Sheller Center First

In a first for the Sheller Center, clinic students have worked with the Philadelphia DA’s Office to assist with the prosecution of labor crimes. Carolina Fernandez (’25), Ingrid Lopez Martinez (’24), Lucas Masin-Moyer (’24), Drew Perkoski (’25), represented a group of workers who worked for a moving company called EJ Relocations LLC. They alleged that the employer failed to pay their wages and threatened them to prevent them from making legal claims for their wages. Assistant District Attorney Maria DiGeorge (‘21), a Temple Law alum and a former Sheller Center clinic student, leads the prosecution against the principals of the company, who were recently charged with intimidation of witnesses, conspiracy, and involuntary servitude.

Students Participate in Workers Summit  

Social Justice Lawyering Clinic students, students, Adam Karbeling (’24), Jackie McCann (‘25), and Alex Suarez (’25), have partnered with the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA-PA) to draft stronger legislation to protect domestic workers against retaliation, exploitation, and other unfair and illegal practices. Together along with other worker advocate groups, the NDWA-PA organized the Philly Workers Fight Back Summit in November, which brought different workers together to share stories, find solidarity, and devise strategies concerning the draft legislation. “It was great to see the excitement surrounding this legislation at the Philly Workers Fight Back Summit, where everyone I talked to was interested in various details of the legislation and had thought deeply about it,” said Karbeling, who attended the event. See here for Philadelphia Inquirer coverage of the event.

Helping Temple students understand their rights as tenants

In this week’s Temple News, journalism student Alayna Hutchinson reports on a plan by students in our Social Justice Lawyering Clinic to provide better information to Temple students — especially undergraduates — about their rights as tenants in off-campus housing. Casey Dwyer and Anna Manu Fineanganofo, 2Ls, developed the plan in consultation with the Office of the Dean of Students, the Cherry Pantry, and the Law School’s student-organized Housing Justice Initiative. Law students participating in the program would offer legal information to students with questions about their leases or rental conditions; if legal advice or representation were needed, a student could be referred to one of Philly’s legal services organizations.

We’re grateful to Temple News reporter Alayna Hutchinson for digging into the important issue — well documented by Temple’s own Hope Center — of how to get more legal help to students with problems involving basic needs.

Protecting Immigrants in Need of Long-Term Medical Care

In late September, Philadelphia City Councilmember Jim Harrity introduced a bill seeking to end medical deportation in the city by hospitals. Three Temple Law students in the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic, Sarah Hampton (’22), Livia Luan (’23), and Adalberto Rosado (’23), worked along with the Free Migration Project to draft this ordinance ensuring that ill, injured, or elderly uninsured patients will not be deported to their country of origin against their will due to financial or language barriers. Check out this Philly Inquirer article that has more about this practice and how this bill will assist this endangered population.

Latest update: On December 14, 2023, the bill passed 14-1 in the final session of City Council for the year.

Child Abuse Registry Disproportionately Harms Black Workers and Families

Today, the Sheller Center, along with Penn Law School, released a report tracing the racial harms of the Registry. The report, titled Pathways to Poverty: How the ChildLine and Abuse Registry Disproportionately Harms Black Workers and Families, summarizes a year-long investigation by students finding that Black Pennsylvanians are more likely to be reported for child abuse, be placed on the Registry, and lose a job as a result. Further information can be found in our press release and the subsequent coverage with WITF, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Philadelphia Inquirer.