Isabella Primavera
California Appellate Clinic
Isabella took advantage of every opportunity the state appellate clinic offered. She assisted self-represented litigants through Public Counsel’s program, researched and drafted arguments for a California Women’s Law Center amicus brief in a domestic violence appeal, and visited the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Three to watch oral argument and meet with the justices and research attorneys. What stood out, though, was Isabella’s ability to tie her experience in this clinic to her other Loyola training. She recognized the connection between the access to justice concerns she saw for self-represented appellate litigants and those she saw previously in criminal expungement proceedings in Loyola’s Collateral Consequences of Conviction Justice Project (CCCJP).
She also appreciated how guest lecturer Noella Sudbury, founder of Rasa Legal, which digitizes and helps individuals navigate the expungement process, was solving problems Isabella herself had seen in the CCCJP, and how these same technologies might be used to help self-represented litigants on appeal. She also looked for opportunities to gain a 360-degree view of the judicial decision-making process, from meeting with the state appellate justices in our clinic to a federal district court externship. Her curiosity and holistic, big-picture approach to the law will serve her well as she enters law practice.