No place like home

Western Center on Law & Poverty celebrates 40th birthday at USC

— By Rizza Barnes

The Western Center on Law & Poverty – California’s oldest and largest legal services support center – returned to its USC Law roots Sept. 20 to celebrate its 40th anniversary.

In 1967, under the deanship of Judge Dorothy Nelson LLM ’56, USC Law established WCLP as a law school clinical program. Marty Levine, now USC’s vice provost of faculty affairs, created the center, which eventually outgrew its USC home and became an independent legal services agency that continues to serve the poor.

During WCLP’s annual Garden Party, more than 350 gathered at Town and Gown to support the nonprofit and to honor its founders, as well as current and former staff members. The event program also included a tribute to the late Justice Paul Boland ’66, who was a WCLP staff attorney and deputy director of litigation from 1968-70, and remarks by New York University Law Professor Derrick Bell, who started his academic career at USC Law and served as WCLP’s first executive director.

“If our society is to survive, we must provide for those who are on the bottom,” Bell urged the audience. “Your gifts, support and encouragement enable even a losing struggle to be worth fighting for.” 

A Founders’ Reception was held at the law school prior to the anniversary celebration. Attendees included Lavine; Bell; Judge Terry Hatter Jr., former WCLP executive director and longtime member of USC Law’s Board of Councilors; Associate Justice Earl Johnson Jr., former USC Law professor; Judge Barbara Johnson ’70; Judge Abby Soven ’68; and USC Law Professor Michael Shapiro, former WCLP staff attorney.    

— Photos by Jennalyn Magtoto