Alternative Spring Break

Alternative Spring Break is a project of the Association for Public Interest Law and is completely student driven and organized. During spring break, students use their legal skills to provide assistance at legal service and public interest organizations. Started in 2007 as the Student Hurricane Network, part of a national effort to send law students to the gulf coast to assist after Hurricane Katrina, the program has grown dramatically, with more than 45 students participating in 2010 at five sites in RI, Massachusetts and across the U.S.

Past projects have included:

• Conducting a legal needs assessment of individuals and families living in FEMA trailers in New Orleans
• Working with the Mississippi Center for Justice in Biloxi on several projects, including protection of a low-income neighborhood from placement of an environmentally unsafe port
• Assisting the Pro Bono Project in New Orleans with contractor fraud and other cases following the hurricane
• Providing legal research and other assistance to the United Mountain Defense regarding mountain top removal in Virginia and Alabama
• Helping the Maryland Public Defender’s Office in Baltimore with a range of issues and cases ranging from murder trials to advising clients about traffic laws at a driving record clinic. 
• Conducting legal intakes and providing legal research support on asylum and other immigration related matters at the Immigration, Education, and Advocacy Project  in Fall River, MA
• Assessing the availability of interpreters in RI courts and identifying access barriers through a project with the RI ACLU
• Interviewing former tenants of the now-vacant Watuppa Heights public housing complex in Fall River, MA, which has been slated for demolition and redevelopment as part of a class action case brought by South Coastal Counties Legal Services. 

APIL holds an information session about ASB each fall.