2022 Inaugural Graciela Olivárez Latinas in the Legal Academy ("GO LILA") Workshop
Julia Vázquez
Professor Julia Vázquez is a Clinical Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School where she is the Director of the Community Lawyering Clinic, Removal Defense Clinic and Public Interest Concentration. She also teaches Critical Race Theory and serves as Programming Chair for the Taskforce on Equity, Inclusion & Belonging. Her practice, teaching and scholarship focus on immigration, immigrant rights, legal empowerment of under-resourced communities and impacted lawyer wellness and sustainability. Professor Vázquez co-founded Southwestern Law School’s Removal Defense Program and is the founding director of the Student Legal Support Clinic at California State University, Northridge, which is staffed by law students under her supervision.
Professor Vázquez is recognized for her pedagogical expertise and anti-racist curriculum design, which integrates tenets of critical pedagogy, Rebellious Lawyering and transformative legal education. She endeavors to bridge the gap between teaching, scholarship and activism. Her most recent outreach project, Pathways to Justice, partners with public schools in South Central Los Angeles to diversify the legal profession and inspire students of color to explore social justice lawyering as a career. She has provided expert witness testimony before the California State Senate in support of immigrant rights legislation. As a member of the National Lawyers Guild-Los Angeles’ Immigration Steering Committee she designed a pilot virtual immigration clinic serving asylum seekers subject to the draconian “Remain in Mexico” policy. Additionally, she founded the Impacted Immigration Wellness and Sustainability Project, which seeks to combat burnout, compassion fatigue and support immigration attorneys of color who are members of the immigrant communities they represent.
Prior to graduating from UCLA School of Law with specializations in Critical Race Studies and Public Interest Law & Policy, Professor Vázquez received her Master of Education with an emphasis in Critical Pedagogy and Bilingual Teaching Credential from UCLA. During her previous career as a Bilingual Urban Educator in South Central Los Angeles, she spearheaded a coalition of students, parents and educators dedicated to student language rights in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Professor Vázquez is proud of her deep roots in the immigrant community and attributes her life experience as a member of a working-class Mexican immigrant family as the framework for her professional and personal dedication to social justice lawyering and transformative legal education.
Related Sessions
© Stanford University. Stanford, California 94305.