Student Legal Services Q&A

By Tosin Faseemo 

Student Legal Services is an organization dedicated to helping students with a variety of legal issues. Caitlin Speier and Noah Harstad, members of the Student Legal Service Board, sat down to discuss the many resources provided for students by Student Legal Services. 

What does the board do?

Caitlyn: Usually twenty-five U of M students who represent the undergraduate voice let the office know what students want, so they can better serve them. We also are in charge of all of the office’s outreach and education programming.

What services does Student Legal Services provide?

Noah: Tenant rights, criminal, immigration, consumer, employment, wills, healthcare, basically anything.

Caitlyn: Except, a few years back, they had to cut family law because it was taking up too much of attorneys’ time, but that’s really the only thing we don’t do. A majority of our work is landlord/tenant. We had a campaign to increase lease reviews amongst students, so we have very much focus on landlord/tenant. Behind that is mostly criminal law, power of attorney, or immigration. And I think this year we’re trying to push immigration a lot.

Noah: Especially with the potential ending of DACA.

What does Student Legal Services do in relation to immigration law and helping students?

Caitlyn: They do all sorts of work, whether it be getting your visa granted through the lottery process or DACA, or generally advocating for students in getting their visa or citizenship. A lot of it is DACA-focused especially since we're on a college campus.

Noah: So basically they do anything a private attorney would do within the realm of immigration.

So when a student gets help from Student Legal Services they are  working directly with a real lawyer?

Noah: With a real attorney, yep.

What should a student do to set up an appointment?

Caitlyn: Generally, you can do it via phone or internet, or walk-in to set up an appointment. The actual office is in the West Bank Skyway. When you go there, there will probably be a paralegal or an office manager or our secretary will set up an appointment for you generally within the next week. But if it's an emergency situation they try to take care of it really quickly.

What would qualify as an emergency situation?

Caitlyn: Like, if you were going to get deported in the next week.

Noah: We do a lot of criminal defense too, so something within that realm could be an emergency situation.

I know you were telling me before there's an emphasis on students knowing their rights?

Noah: We have a “Know Your Rights” event that we do annually.

Caitlyn: Yeah, and we're trying to expand on that. I am working on “Know Your Rights” events for protester rights, immigration rights, or general interactions with police rights. I think those are three areas that we could do. But more generally, we already have programming for renters’ rights and rights relating to gender identity. So we have all those in the works and all of our attorneys love working with students.

I think there's sometimes a stigma around the idea of seeking legal help. Is there anything you want students to know about that? 

Caitlyn: It's really easy to think that going to Student Legal Services means that you're a criminal or that you did something wrong, but it's very responsible to get legal help and it doesn't indicate that you're in the wrong, by any means.

Noah: The law is such a big part of our lives, and knowing that you have this service can be a real comfort.

Caitlyn: We also do a lot of neutral things, like power of attorney. Power of attorney is 15% of what we do. That means, for example, if you're studying abroad, it's super responsible to get someone to be your power of attorney if you're out of the country in case something comes up. Usually people choose their parents or their guardians or something.

Noah: Power of attorney basically gives someone that you identify legal representation over you so they can take care of financial documents, taxes, etc.

Caitlyn: Also, I know this doesn’t relate exactly to your question, but Student Legal Services has client financial benefits averaging $250,000 per year returned to students, and that's not including savings on legal services.

Noah: So basically, that's like damage deposits or savings on rent that are just going back in students’ pockets.

Caitlyn: Especially with landlord-tenant issues, getting help from a lawyer might not be an official document thing that happens, it might just be as simple as saying, “my attorney says that what you're doing is not okay.” That'll get landlords into shape really fast. If your landlord is not resolving issues with you, it will count as a strike toward them, and Student Legal Services has a list of apartment buildings that are not considered good for students to live in.

Noah: We have a list online, that anyone is open to look at, of places where you should not rent, and it's updated daily.

What steps should a student take if they want to get involved with the Student Legal Services board?

Caitlyn: It’s a rolling application process, which means you can get on the board at any time in the year. We just decided that everyone this year gets a guaranteed interview, so it will be an application including a resume and two or three short answer questions. We will review that before your interview and our head of the interview committee will get back to you in a timely manner.

For more information about Student Legal Services, go to sls.umn.edu.