Our goal is to develop public service leaders. The LEAPS program integrates the academic, career and experiential opportunities that touch public service at BC, providing opportunities for students to discover and develop their talents for advancing the public good through their chosen legal path.
Each year, our LEAPS Public Service Scholars become a core part of the entering 1L class, but the LEAPS experience extends across the entire student body beginning with our leadership read early in the fall semester. It continues at our Public Interest Law Retreat where students get to know each other, explore various public interest career paths, and meet alumni, faculty, and student organization leaders. We offer LEAPS-related academic and experiential course offerings, faculty mentoring, career-related programs, pro bono opportunities and immersion trips, and many events with student organizations.
LEAPS is led by the Faculty Director and Director of Public Interest and Pro Bono Programs Michelle Grossfield. The program is closely aligned with our Rappaport Center for Law & Public Policy, whose focus is on promoting leadership and public policy initiatives in local and state government. A number of events and programs on campus are co-sponsored by LEAPS and Rappaport as well as with other centers including the Center for Experiential Learning, Clough Center for Constitutional Democracy and the Center for Human Rights and International Justice.
The LEAPS Faculty Director helps guide students through the various leadership and public service opportunities at BC Law. Contact Evangeline Sarda to learn more.
The LEAPS program is designed to be flexible; students may choose to participate only in certain aspects, or they may choose to complete, for example, a more rigorous set of prerequisites to become a Public Interest Designation Fellow at graduation, or complete a capstone project in their third year as a LEAPS scholar. Curricular aspects of LEAPS include:
University-wide public service and leadership courses such as Authority & Leadership in Professional Life (LAWS446401), as well as social justice clinics (at right), with option for completion of Public Interest Designation Fellow requirements
Individual faculty mentoring and academic advising with optional project/course-directed study under LEAPS Faculty Director
Related experiential learning opportunities through the Center for Experiential Learning:
The Pro Bono Program
Our Pro Bono Program connects students to a variety of placements and organizations where they gain invaluable experience by pledging 50+ hours of law-related community service.
Public Interest Designation Program (PIDP)
PIDP prepares students to launch meaningful public sector careers. PIDP students contribute not only to the BC Law community but also to the local, national, and international communities they serve.
The Curtin Center
Opened in 1999 and dedicated by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, the John J. and Mary Daly Curtin Center for Public Interest Law serves as the physical home for the Law School’s LEAPS initiatives supporting public interest legal work.
Spring Break Pro Bono Immersion Trips
New Orleans, Phoenix, Chicago—to some students those cities might sound like fun spring break destinations, but for a number of BC Law 1Ls, they were places to learn complex truths about practicing law. For decades, during a week in spring semester, the school has been sending aspiring lawyers across America to gain experience in international human rights, immigration, Native American law, and more.
Housed in the Curtin Center and organized in 1984 by students interested in working at public interest organizations, PILF aims to promote public interest law-focused activities at BC Law.
Each year, PILF hosts an auction, the proceeds of which allow the organization and matching funds from other generous supporters to provide grants to students who would not otherwise be able to afford to work in these traditionally low-salaried areas. PILF is one of many public service oriented student organizations.
The Public Service Scholars program---a scholarship initiative established to encourage entering students committed to serving others--has supported some sixty graduates as they pursue public interest careers. As the 20th anniversay of the program approaches, BC Law Magazine explores how the Scholars fan out and change the world.
In our Ninth Circuit Appellate Program, students hone high-level skills in client communication, legal research, brief writing, and oral advocacy as they argue (and often win) real immigration cases before the bench in Federal Appeals Court—a chance that many seasoned lawyers never get over an entire career.
California Ninth Circuit program
