News

Wednesday, April 17th is the Harvard Women’s Law Association’s Shatter the Ceiling Awards ceremony. Each spring, the WLA recognizes the people who represent the gold standard for promoting inclusiveness and equality, both at Harvard Law School and beyond.

Shanell Lavery, program manager of the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project (PLAP), is

The Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project (PLAP) is now accepting applications for its 2019 Summer Student Attorney Program.

Why work at PLAP this summer? Here are just a few reasons:

• At PLAP, you will take the lead on your own cases and directly represent clients in prison disciplinary, parole, and classification

The UCLA Prison Law and Policy Program has released its 2019 Summer Job Search Guide with information about organizations and offices around the country who do prisoners’ rights work and who are looking for summer interns.

The Prison Law and Policy Program also hosts the Prison Law JD listserv for current law students and recent

The Harvard Gazette featured three PLAPers—Milo Inglehart, Megan Barnes, and Jake Meiseles—in an article about Harvard Law School’s capital punishment clinic. Meiseles, Barnes, and Inglehart took Professor Carol Steiker’s Capital Punishment Clinic as 2Ls during their January term.  In the article, they describe the problematic and horrific use of the

If you're a new student interesting in joining PLAP or a returning student new to PLAP, join us at one of our two new member trainings this week! Learn more about the PLAP experience and what we do.

New Member Trainings
Wednesday, September 19 | 5:00 to 7:30 PM | WCC 2012
Thursday,

Please read PLAP's statements on the decision Harvard made to deny Michelle Jones admission into Harvard's History department. The story was originally published in the Harvard Record.

[embed]http://hlrecord.org/2017/09/plap-executive-board-statement-on-michelle-jones/[/embed]

The Bristol County Sheriff’s office intends to end in-person visitation in two Dartmouth facilities, replacing it with video calls. The Bristol County House of Correction and the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office Women’s Center will be the first jails in Massachusetts to make the transition.

These Bristol County facilities hold both inmates

On July 18, the Department of Correction agreed to transfer 14 men out of the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater, the medium-security DOC facility that holds prisoners who are or may be civilly committed as sexually dangerous persons. The 14 men were not serving sentences for sex offenses and indeed

Over spring break, 5 members of PLAP and another HLS student traveled to New Orleans, LA to work with the Promise of Justice Initiative (PJI) on a lawsuit seeking injunctive relief to deliver constitutionally adequate medical care to incarcerated people at Angola. Our students helped the attorneys prepare for trial

Today, members of Free Minds Book Club and Writing Workshop, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC, came to Harvard Law School to speak to a group of students. Free Minds uses books, creative writing, and a peer support system to awaken incarcerated youth to their own potential. Their motto

Last Wednesday, February 22, PLAP hosted Jesse White, the attorney who runs Prisoners' Legal Services' Prison Brutality Project. The project seeks to address the widespread problem of correctional staff abusing their authority by assaulting the men and women who they are employed to keep safe. Jesse staffs the Rapid Response

PLAP is hiring rising 2Ls and 3Ls to work as full-time student attorneys this summer. PLAP is one of the few large-scale law student practice organizations delivering legal services to incarcerated individuals, and has helped defend Massachusetts prisoners’ rights for over four decades.
Student attorneys represent Massachusetts state prison inmates in

On Tuesday, January 17, the Coalition for Effective Public Safety sent a letter to Chief Justice Gants, Governor Baker, Speaker DeLeo, and Senate President Rosenberg expressing concern about the end of the Council of State Governments' stay in Massachusetts.  CSG has been in the state since 2015, gathering information and preparing

Last semester, new student attorneys visited MCI Cedar Junction, the reception center for male offenders in the Massachusetts Department of Corrections.  The tour guide brought the group through multiple areas of the prison, including the cells, the visiting area, and the Department Disciplinary Unit.

The tour of the cells went by

Now that students have returned from winter break, the PLAP office is back up and running! We are excited to announce that this year we will be open during J-Term, so we will be answering phone calls and responding to letters as usual.
PLAPpers, now is a great time to take

A group of plaintiffs filed a civil suit on Monday, October 17th arguing that the civil commitment process for some sex offenders in Massachusetts has violated state law.  In a civil commitment, sex offenders deemed "sexually dangerous" may be held at the Massachusetts Treatment Center after the completion of their

Inmates in prisons across the country have been striking since September 9th, the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison riots.  Prisoners are utilizing both labor strikes and hunger strikes to protest mass incarceration and prison labor conditions.  One organization heavily involved in the strike, the Free Alabama Movement, issued a

On Thursday, October 6th, PLAP Board Members Dennis Dillon, Annie Manhardt, and Katherine Robinson testified at a public hearing regarding proposed changes to the Massachusetts Department of Correction regulations.  As an organization, we submitted testimony regarding proposed changes to the regulations that govern disciplinary hearings, use of force, and grievance procedures.

Last week new PLAPpers participated in our annual cross-examination training. This is an important training as it prepares new 1Ls to take on their own disciplinary hearings and teaches them basic advocacy skills. Lawyers from across Boston volunteered their time on Wednesday evening to help students with the difficult task of cross-examining

With the new school year now in full swing, PLAP is happy to announce that this year it has added more new members than ever! 122 students attended New Member Orientation last week. In order for new members to learn how PLAP works and how to best help our clients,