law students

Bankruptcy Clinic Students Save Legacy in Decade-Long Advocacy

The Eleanor R. Cristol and Judge A. Jay Cristol Bankruptcy Pro Bono Assistance Clinic at Miami Law offers pro bono legal services to low-income individuals who are dealing with bankruptcy.




Since 1995, the University of Miami School of Law’s bankruptcy clinic has given current Hurricane law students the opportunity to deliver life-changing pro bono legal services to indigent clients throughout South Florida.

Bankruptcy attorney Patricia “Trish” Redmond founded the clinic at the school where she still serves as an adjunct professor. A 2019 Tobias Simon Pro Bono Award Winner and shareholder at Stearns Weaver Miller, Redmond devotes between 200-400 hours every year to her pro bono work, which benefits thousands of underprivileged and low-income individuals, children, and families.

Bankruptcy cases are far from easy. A simple Chapter 7 can last up to six months while a more complex Chapter 13 can take up to five years, which makes the case Redmond and her team just completed all the more shocking.

“This case came to the clinic around 2010,” Redmond said. “Thirteen years’ worth of law students worked on this case.”

As Redmond explained, the debtor, a construction worker on dialysis, had lost his home in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy case.

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Law Student Named Equal Justice Works 2022 Rural Summer Legal Corps Fellow


Elise Baroni

Anna Hope Colley

Elise Baroni

Third-year law student Elise Baroni has been named Equal Justice Works’ 2022 Rural Summer Legal Corps Fellow. Selected from 333 applicants, Baroni is one of 40 law students who will serve in the program this year.

Baroni will be hosted by Legal Aid of Arkansas, where she will join “Beyond Opioids—Breaking Legal Barriers for Families in Recovery,” a collaborative project among legal aid programs in Arkansas that supports people impacted by the opioid crisis and other substance use disorders at the host organization. She will be based in Newport, Arkansas.

“I’m really excited to have the opportunity to be a Rural Summer Legal Corps Fellow because I am able to continue exploring public interest work and connect to future attorneys across the country who have a similar interest,” Baroni said. “I’m also happy this program exists and funds important projects in rural communities with little to no legal help, and am honored to be a part of it.”

The Rural Summer Legal Corps is a partnership between the Legal Services Corporation and Equal Justice Works that supports dedicated law students who want to spend their summer addressing pressing legal issues facing rural

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