Y-Lab News

Sarah Berton, JD ’25 and Youth Advocacy Fellow, received the 2025 CLEA Outstanding Clinical Externship Student Award. The honor is in recognition of her commitment to youth advocacy through her clinical work in multiple and varied externship placements with Y-Lab’s Child Advocacy Clinic and Education Law Clinic. Learn more about Sarah’s clinical experiences here in […]

In January 2025, Education Law Clinic student Peter Goeckner ’25 discussed his experience advocating for education equity and a novel litigation strategy in Kentucky in which he participated. Read more in “Clinic Student Voices” here, Protecting and Improving Public Education, in Kentucky and Beyond (January 21, 2025).

Peter Goeckner ’25 brings viewers along for a day in the life in the Education Law Clinic. Watch here on Instagram.

At the end of April, Y-Lab gathered students, staff, friends, and family to celebrate this year’s graduating Youth Advocacy Fellows. The event included remarks from leadership about each departing student’s pathway through the Fellowship and contributions to the youth advocacy community. Click here to read the full story, ‘A positive, transformative experience’: Youth Advocacy and […]

Earlier this year, we posted about a lawsuit filed January 14, 2025, by Kentucky Student Voice Team (KSVT) with Education Law Clinic students and the Center for Education Equity (CEE) at Teacher’s College of Columbia University. More recently, Harvard Law Today wrote about the Kentucky students, HLS students, and HLS and Columbia University clinical supervisors […]

Y-Lab Faculty Director, Michael Gregory, along with HLS students in the TLPI/Education Law Strategic Litigation Clinic researched and helped develop litigation alongside the Kentucky Student Voice Team (KSVT), a youth-led coalition. Gregory also developed the litigation with the Center for Education Equity (CEE) at Teacher’s College of Columbia University. As a result, Kentucky youth filed […]

Arjun Gananathan ’24 is recipient of the 2024 Ralph D. Gants Access to Justice Award. Arjun is recognized for a commitment to reducing barriers to racial equity and justice displayed throughout his time at HLS, including as a Y-Lab Fellow and in his Child Advocacy Clinic placement with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office–Child Protection […]

Gabrielle Grossman is a recipient of the 2024 CLEA Outstanding Clinical Externship Student Award. The honor is in recognition of her commitment to youth advocacy through her clinical work in multiple and varied externship placements with Y-Lab’s Child Advocacy Clinic. To learn more about Gabrielle’s accomplishments, click here for the full feature.

In Nurturing voices: Reflections On Advocacy and Empowerment In Child Protection (May 14, 2024), Fatima Khan LL.M (’24) describes her Y-Lab Child Advocacy Clinic externship experience working with the Child Protection Unit (CPU) of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office (SCDAO). Through her placement work, Fatima saw how critical it is to nurture young victims’ […]

In, ‘I Wanted To Make A Difference Here,’ (Harvard Law Today, May 14, 2024), Brenna Phillips (’24) shares how she worked to build community in and outside of the classroom, while pursuing her passion for education equity through Y-Lab’s Education Law Clinic and Fellows Program.

In, Advocating for Students, Advancing Educational Equity (May 7, 2024), Vanessa Agudelo (’24) reflects on the impact Y-Lab’s Education Law Clinic and Child Advocacy Clinic had on her professional growth as she engaged with education issues at both a policy-level and through direct legal services to local low-income communities.

Join us for courses on children and the law in Spring 2024! ART OF SOCIAL CHANGE: CHILD WELFARE, EDUCATION, AND JUVENILE JUSTICE Art of Social Change: Child Welfare, Education, and Juvenile Justice explores various strategies for systemic law and policy reform, focusing on legal systems that impact children, including the education, juvenile legal, and child […]

Katie Martinez is an HLS recipient of the 2023 Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) Outstanding Clinical Student Awards. She is recognized for “her unwavering dedication to the Child Advocacy Clinic,” during which she completed an externship with the Committee for Public Counsel Services’ Youth Advocacy Division (YAD) through Y-Lab. Katie also participated in Y-Lab’s Education […]

Molly Crane is the 2023 recipient of the Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award given “[to] a member of the J.D. class who has displayed an outstanding commitment to improving and delivering high quality volunteer legal services to disadvantaged communities.” Y-Lab was pleased to work with Molly directly both as an inaugural Youth Advocacy […]

On April 12, 2023, Y-Lab gathered to celebrate the inaugural class of the Youth Advocacy Fellows Program (Y-Lab Fellows). The first class of Y-Lab Fellows numbered 20 students, half of which are graduating next month. Y-Lab faculty, staff, and 2L Fellows, cheered on the many accomplishments of each graduate, highlighted through individualized tributes delivered by […]

Diane Bernabei (JD ’24), penned a post, The Trial Court Experience in the Child Advocacy Clinic, (01/10/23), for the the latest HLS Clinical and Pro Bono Programs blog in which she reflects on her externship placement with a judge in the Boston Juvenile Court (BJC). While Diane expected to gain professional and legal experience about […]

Michael Gregory, Faculty Director of the Youth Advocacy & Policy Lab (Y-Lab), Education Law Clinic, and Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI), took part in a panel discussion titled, “Faculty Perspectives on Well-Being.”

The University of Baltimore professor of law and director of its Center on Sports and the Law graduates this month with a Master of Laws (LLM).