Temple Law Student Selected to Equal Justice Works National Advisory Committee

Rising 2L Elizabeth Schultz is one of four law students nationwide chosen to serve a two-year term on the Equal Justice Works National Advisory Committee.

Founded by law students in 1986, Equal Justice Works is dedicated to creating a just society by mobilizing the next generation of lawyers committed to equal justice. The National Advisory Committee (NAC) is comprised of students and professionals from Equal Justice Works member law schools who provide guidance and advice to the organization toward the goal of expanding public interest opportunities for law students and lawyers.

Candidates for the NAC must have a demonstrated commitment to public interest law and, ideally, wish to effect change on their campuses and/or in the legal community. Members of public interest and/or pro bono organizations on campus and those who have dedicated time to serving low-income or underserved communities either during or prior to law school are also ideal.

“I came to law school out of an eight-year career as a high school Spanish teacher in an affluent, racially-homogeneous community,” writes Schultz, who says she considers racial justice and poverty the most pressing issues in the law today. “The piece of my heart I left in my classroom throbs when I think about the fact that I could be teaching (social justice issues) to the next generation of movers and shakers. But I felt called to seek more tools to pursue this work than I felt I had as a teacher, and I anticipate being heard more as a lawyer than I was as a teacher.”

Schultz has brought the experience and perspective gained during her time in the classroom to her new profession, serving as a School Discipline Advocacy Service (SDAS) 1L representative and becoming the first 1L to take the lead on a case. She has also served as a 1L representative to the Expungement Project and the Temple chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. She will serve as an Intake Chair with SDAS and Co-Chair of the NLG Expungement Project in the next academic year. She is interning this summer at the ACLU.