{"id":2187,"date":"2026-04-01T11:46:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/?p=2187"},"modified":"2026-04-01T11:46:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:46:27","slug":"plapper-of-the-week-j-souvaliotis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/2026\/04\/01\/plapper-of-the-week-j-souvaliotis\/","title":{"rendered":"PLAPper of the Week: J Souvaliotis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

J Souvaliotis is a member of the class of 2028, is in Section 1, and is from Houston, TX.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When did you join PLAP and why?<\/strong> I joined PLAP my first semester of my 1L year. I wanted to get experience working with clients and to make a real substantive difference in people\u2019s lives. Prisons are not the best environment, and helping incarcerated people get better treatment is a really meaningful thing to be able to do.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What have you worked on during your time in PLAP and why did you choose those cases? <\/strong>I\u2019m currently working on a D-Ticket where we are waiting on discovery. I also signed up to work on the amicus brief over winter break. Wesley mentioned it in office hours and I knew I was going to be mostly sitting at home over break. I appreciated the chance to get a different perspective from the types of things we normally do in PLAP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was the experience of working on the amicus brief like?<\/strong> It was nice to be productive for a few afternoons over break and use my legal research skills for something more interesting than the bear memo. We were preparing a 50 state survey on the legality of force feeding during hunger strikes, so I was looking for any rulings or statutes on the issue. I was focusing on the 10th Circuit, and going state by state looking for any precedent there.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was the most interesting or surprising part of working on that brief?\u00a0<\/strong>I saw that prisoners have such a limited capability for speaking up for themselves in prison. You\u00a0hear this from\u00a0PLAP clients, they say that they\u00a0being\u00a0mistreated but there is\u00a0little\u00a0they can do about it unless they get a\u00a0D-Ticket and they fight it. A lot of the\u00a0ways for\u00a0a prisoner\u00a0to stand\u00a0up for themselves\u00a0are\u00a0through constrained administrative processes\u00a0and\u00a0often\u00a0restricted\u00a0by the\u00a0Prison\u00a0Litigation\u00a0Reform\u00a0Act. If you\u00a0want to sue,\u00a0you\u00a0have to\u00a0probably\u00a0represent\u00a0yourself\u00a0pro se\u00a0or find the rare lawyer who has the time\u00a0and willingness to take your case.\u00a0Against this backdrop, the only way to be able to exercise autonomy is to go on hunger strike and even that is so limited:\u00a0Do people on the outside\u00a0actually hear\u00a0about it?\u00a0If they do,\u00a0who actually pays attention to\u00a0it?\u00a0If not, is it worth it to just protest\u00a0to\u00a0the guards?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has been the most impactful part of PLAP for you? <\/strong>Just picking up the phone and talking to prisoners and reading their letters. I knew that prison is bad, but actually being able to talk through people\u2019s problems and hear about how they\u2019re mistreated really shines a light on the situation. A lot of people call who are trying to manage their own case, either a criminal appeal or with regards to their civil rights in the prison, and they don\u2019t have access to legal resources. It\u2019s really motivating to come to office hours and feel like I can stand up for someone today, even a little bit. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

J Souvaliotis is a member of the class of 2028, is in Section 1, and is from Houston, TX.\u00a0 When did you join PLAP and why? I joined PLAP my first semester of my 1L year. I wanted to get experience working with clients and to make a real substantive difference in people\u2019s lives. Prisons are not the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11956,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[158],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-potw","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11956"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2188,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2187\/revisions\/2188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/plap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}