Three CLINIC projects focused on expanding and deepening capacity at community-based legal service organizations were thriving and growing in 2024. These were the Mentorship Project (MP), the Recent Arrivals Capacity Building Mentorship Initiative (RACBMI), and the Immigration Legal Services Support Project (ILSSP).  

The Mentorship Project was founded in 2023 as an effort to provide guidance from CLINIC expert attorneys to legal practitioners across the network working on tough immigration cases who want to expand their knowledge and experience in immigration law. The CLINIC staff meet directly with selected Affiliate mentees to walk through the cases step by step, from filing applications for relief for their clients to engaging in mock hearings with clients to prepare them for court.  

“We mentor attorneys and DOJ Accredited Representatives from across the country on a huge range of cases,” said Rebekah Niblock, the supervising senior attorney who runs the program alongside senior paralegal Maddie Birky.

“In the past year, as the project has taken off even more, we helped with cases supporting victims of violence, unaccompanied children, Afghan refugees, asylum applicants, and more. We are working to keep up with demand for mentorship. And in 2024, our mentees saw a number of wins for their clients, which was very encouraging.” 

“Some of the mentees we work with are located in representation deserts, where they are the only practitioner serving low-income immigrants,” said Maddie Birky. “The goal is to give all our mentees the confidence and capacity to serve this particular client and then carry that knowledge going forward.”  

CLINIC interviewed one of the 2024 MP participants, Ezra Rash, who works at the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy as an attorney focusing on helping unaccompanied child migrants.

The Mentorship Project helped two of his clients, undocumented brothers aged 9 and 14, win asylum this past year. “I don’t think we would have gotten the approval without Rebekah and Maddie’s help,” Rash said. He explained how he can now take what he learned about filing for asylum and teach other legal representatives at his organization. “The mentorship is hugely valuable beyond a single case. It impacts the whole organization.”  

The RACBMI project, launched in 2024, is similarly based on the concept of mentorship to increase capacity but with a slightly different model.

Rather than CLINIC experts serving as mentors, the project seeks to match up experienced legal practitioners across the CLINIC network with aspiring or new legal practitioners, particularly DOJ Accredited Representatives. Focused in Wisconsin and later launched in Minnesota, it has led to a 230% increase in immigration legal services capacity in Wisconsin and is expected to continue growing.  

Attorney Megan Davis, who served as a mentor to aspiring DOJ representatives in Wisconsin, said, “I think it can be really scary to be in this field without guidance — and if you don’t have enough support from your organization or are in an office that’s just starting out, you need a place to ask very specific questions about day-to-day practice…having a mentor to help you get your footing is really important.”