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 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
Related experiential learning opportunities through the Center for Experiential Learning:
The LEAPS Faculty Director helps guide students through the various leadership and public service opportunities at BC Law. Contact Evangeline Sarda to learn more.
Our Pro Bono Program connects students to a variety of placements and organizations where they gain invaluable experience, develop critical skills, and build relationships with practitioners and other professionals by pledging 50+ hours of law-related community service.
32%
Participated in the Pro Bono Program
Completing 16,900 hours of service
From BC Law Magazine
Shannon Johnson ’15 was selected as one of two law students nationwide to receive a Merit Distinction for the PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award.
“The pro bono program gave me the opportunity to learn and develop lawyering skills in the real world. It is an extremely rewarding experience to take what you have learned and use it to positively impact someone's life.”
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. Students who complete PIDP’s requirements are honored as Public Interest Designation Fellows at Commencement.
18%
of students participated in PIDP
Program Requirements
Complete 15 hours of public interest coursework
Participate in experiential learning offerings—completing a clinic, an independent study with corresponding pro bono placement, or a public service Semester in Practice or other qualifying externship
Spend at least one summer interning with a public sector employer
Take BC Law’s pro bono pledge and complete 50+ hours of public service
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.
Funded through a gift by former American Bar Association President John J. Curtin Jr., BC '54, JD '57, the Center is, in the words of the late Mr. Curtin, “a visible sign of the commitment to public service for Boston College and its students."
In addition to offices and a formal conference room, the Center also provides casual meeting, study, and common space for students involved in various LEAPS public service and pro bono activities. BC Law students regularly complete over 13,500 pro bono hours annually and anout 20% of graduates participate in the Public Interest Designation Program. The Center allows these students to share their experiences and reflect on the educational and formative impact of their work.
Mr. Curtin maintained that when it came to public interest legal work, “the spirit is alive, but must be nourished." The Curtin Center for Public Interest Law continues to support, encourage, and nourish our students' commitment to public service.
Public Interest Law Foundation (PILF)
Housed in the Curtin Center, PILF aims to promote public interest law-focused activities at BC Law. PILF hosts an annual auction, and the proceeds along with matching funds from other generous supporters provide grants to students who would not otherwise be able to afford to work in these traditionally low-salaried areas. PILF also supports the Francis X. Bellotti Loan Repayment Assistance and Forgiveness Program for graduates who pursue careers in public interest law.
Pro Bono Praise
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice Geraldine Hines and members of the SJC’s Pro Bono Standing Committee praised BC Law's strong commitment to service.
“Jack Curtin's life is a shining example of something we hold most dear at Boston College Law School: a life spent in service to others in a myriad of ways.”
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.
BC Law’s clinical programs are ripe with opportunities for students to put their public service ideals to the test. As many have found out, society’s problems are legion but so are the rewards of helping an elderly woman save her home or keeping a teen from perjuring himself or rescuing a troubled child from a failed system.
In “God Don’t Like Ugly,” Melina L. Munoz Turco ’15 recounts her experience with one such kid, a boy she taught to trust again, a boy who taught her to be a lawyer. Their tale and others in BC Law Magazine.
Former LEAPS Public Service Scholars Liam Holland ’17 and Brian Shaud ’17 have been accepted into the US Department of Justice Attorney General’s Honors Program after a highly competitive selection process.
Both join the DOJ’s Federal Programs Branch in Washington, DC. They will be defending the Executive Branch in federal district courts against civil actions attacking the legality of government policies and decisions by litigating “cutting edge” issues of constitutional law.
“We tear society apart if we assume that anyone who has a contrary belief is somehow less of an American,” CEO of the Obama Foundation David Simas '95 told a standing-room-only crowd at the kick-off of BC Law's LEAPS program. “Feel deeply about what you do. Keep your principles centered. Don’t forget the responsibility of citizenship.”
Reflecting on his time at BC Law, Simas said a legal education gave him the ability to view things in a non-binary way, and to “really dig into the puzzle and the intersection of facts with law”—these problem-solving skills and discipline later allowed him to effectively advise the president of the most powerful nation in the world.
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
