The Drake Law School Public Interest Law Association (PILA) will host its annual Court2Court 5K (C2C) on Saturday, April 18. The event is a benefit for Iowa Legal Aid (ILA) and the Poverty Law Internship Program that Iowa Legal Aid and Drake have run each summer for twenty years. Open to both walkers and runners, the 5K will begin at the Iowa Judicial Branch, 1111 East Court Avenue, at 8:45 a.m. Registration is $25 per person.
PILA uses the net proceeds to help Iowa Legal Aid pay just a quarter of the compensation for law student interns working full-time to provide legal services for ILA’s indigent and low-income clients. If Legal Aid can pay one quarter of the compensation, plus applicable FICA, Drake University makes available Federal Work Study funds on a 3:1 basis to pay the remaining three quarters of each student’s total compensation.
Last year, the C2C that PILA sponsored supported nine poverty law interns. Collectively, the interns worked for 2,288 hours and volunteered more than 900 hours in addition to that; and they served 525 clients who would otherwise not have had access to legal representation.
One student who served as a poverty law intern was Drake second year law student Leah Carter. She handled an array of family law, domestic violence, landlord-tenant, consumer, and public benefit cases and also represented the client in an actual unemployment compensation hearing.
“The experience affirmed my commitment to practice public interest law upon graduation,” says Carter. “It gave me the hands-on experience that books and classes cannot fully provide.”
Peddicord, Wharton, Spencer, Hook, Barron & Wegman, L.L.P., and The ARAG Group are again lead sponsors of the Court2Court this year,. Jack Wharton, a partner at Peddicord Wharton, says the firm is proud to support the Public Interest Law Association and Iowa Legal Aid.
“Providing legal services to Iowans and preserving and furthering the goal of equal justice for all is something we strongly believe in at our firm,” he added.
Ann Cosimano, general counsel at The ARAG Group, says her company is glad to be a lead sponsor for the event because ARAG shares Iowa Legal Aid’s mission “to help everybody have access to the legal assistance they need.”
To register for the Court2Court, visit www.getmeregistered.com/court2court5K. The C2C is widely attended by lawyers, students, and other friends of Iowa Legal Aid. Last year more than 150 participated.