Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration (CPIAC)
Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration
The Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration (CPIAC) takes the lead in infusing the law school’s public interest mission into all facets of the student experience.
While supporting the law school’s long-standing commitment to social justice, the center also pilots programs and initiatives that address broader justice issues. The center’s most recent projects have focused on applying design and data strategies to find new interventions in the Cradle-to-Prison pipeline, centering community lawyering as a practice method and connecting students with pro bono opportunities.
Mission
Through teaching, practice, research and networking, CPIAC seeks to enhance the role of law and legal practice in achieving social, economic, and environmental justice in all dimensions. Searching for innovative and holistic solutions to contemporary social justice challenges, we work across disciplines; we engage with academic, professional, advocacy and grassroots communities; and we develop approaches to legal education geared toward this mission.
Core Values
- Upholding democratic values and working as a catalyst for systemic transformation on behalf of and in collaboration with vulnerable populations and communities that promotes the realization of social justice.
- Promoting action-oriented research and public-policy initiatives, strategic collaborations and experiential, cross-disciplinary learning.
Institutional Goals
- To assure that NUSL remains the premier public interest law school
- To develop the best law school-based, interdisciplinary public interest law center
- To develop the premier public interest “pipeline” by recruiting and training the next generation of social justice lawyers, and facilitating their entry upon graduation into fulfilling public interest careers.
Leadership
FACULTY DIRECTOR
Professor Lucy Williams
email: lu.williams@northeastern.edu
(617) 373-4537
Professor Lucy Williams, an internationally recognized authority on welfare law and low-wage labor, as well as international comparative social and economic rights, directs the Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration.
MANAGING DIRECTOR
Shannon Al-Wakeel
Managing Director
email: s.al-wakeel@northeastern.edu
Shannon Al-Wakeel is the managing director of the Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration. A community lawyer and public policy advocate, she was previously executive director of the Muslim Justice League for five years. Shannon received her JD from Harvard Law School in 2010. She worked in the immigration unit at Massachusetts Law Reform Institute as a Kaufman Fellow and went on to serve as state policy director for the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA).