Advisory Committee members and other volunteers

The Habeas Project is coordinated by an Advisory Committee consisting of attorneys, law students, and non-legal advocates in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. The Advisory Committee meets monthly to strategize next steps and evaluate the progress of the Habeas Project.

The Habeas Project also consists of over one hundred other volunteers in California. Without these volunteers’ time, energy, and expertise, the Habeas Project would not be able to deliver high-quality free legal services to eligible survivors. Volunteers represent law firms (Arnold & Porter; Bingham McCutchen; Covington & Burling; Foley & Lardner; Gibson Dunn; Heller Ehrman; Keker & Van Nest; Kazan, McClain, et al.; Latham Watkins; Manatt, Phelps & Phillips; Morrison & Foerster; O'Melveny & Meyers; Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; Pillsbury Winthrop; Proskauer Rose; Squire, Sanders & Dempsey), non-profit organizations, solo practitioners, law students, domestic violence advocates, and countless others.

Legal Services for Prisoners with Children

(www.prisonerswithchildren.org)

Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) advocates for the human rights and empowerment of incarcerated parents, children, family members and people at risk for incarceration. We respond to requests for information, trainings, technical assistance, litigation, community activism and the development of more advocates. Our focus is on women prisoners and their families, and we emphasize that issues of race are central to any discussion of incarceration.

LSPC’s role in the Habeas Project is to screen women prisoners at the two women’s prisons in Northern California (Central California Women’s Facility and Valley State Prison for Women) to determine who is eligible for habeas relief under the law. LSPC will also help recruit, train, and support volunteer legal teams that represent eligible survivors.

Free Battered Women

(www.freebatteredwomen.org)

Free Battered Women is a volunteer-based, statewide coalition that strives to end the re-victimization of incarcerated survivors of battering. We connect our work to the larger struggle to resist all forms of violence against women and transgender people. We achieve this through policy work, parole advocacy, media campaigns, movement building, public education, and legal action.

Free Battered Women’s role in the Habeas Project is to assist with screening women prisoners at the Central California Women’s Facility and Valley State Prison for Women, and to mobilize the public against the injustices facing battered women in prison through community outreach and media advocacy.

Convicted Survivors

Incarcerated survivors play a key role in the Habeas Project. Survivors work with their individual legal teams to put together habeas petitions. Upon release, many survivors participate in public education around issues of battering and its effects, and offer support to women still inside. One goal of the Habeas Project is to build a movement to end all violence against women, and our clients are a central part of that movement.

USC Law School’s Post-Conviction Justice Project

The Post-Conviction Justice Project is a legal clinic at the University of Southern California School of Law. Through this program, certified law student interns, supervised by full-time faculty, represent state and federal prisoners in traditional post-conviction situations, such as parole hearings and habeas corpus petitions challenging the legality of convictions, sentences and denial of parole. The Project also represents clients in civil rights litigation involving prison conditions. The Project represents clients incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island and the California Institution for Women. Project students regularly represent these clients in cases before the California Board of Prison Terms, California superior and appellate courts, United States district courts and United States circuit courts of appeal.

PCJP's role in the Habeas Project is to screen women prisoners at the California Institution for Women in Southern California to determine who is eligible for habeas relief under the law. PCJP will also represent women prisoners in individual cases and help recruit, train, and support volunteer legal teams that represent eligible survivors.

California Women’s Law Center

(www.cwlc.org)

The California Women’s Law Center works to ensure, through systemic change, that life opportunities for women and girls are free from unjust social, economic and political constraints.

The California Women’s Law Center’s role in the Habeas Project is to assist USC’s Post-Conviction Justice Project in screening women prisoners at the California Institution for Women, assigning qualified women to Southern California pro bono attorneys and legal teams, and providing pro bono attorneys with legal support and training.