King Hall Launches Water Justice Clinic

UC Davis School of Law has launched the Water Justice Clinic, an exciting addition to its award-winning clinical programs that is designed to advocate for clean, healthy and adequate water supplies for all Californians. The new clinic is a project of the Aoki Center for Critical Race and Nation Studies, in partnership with the  California Environmental Law and Policy Center, and will offer expanded environmental justice advocacy opportunities for King Hall students.

Currently, more than one million Californians lack access to clean, safe, and affordable drinking water.  Most live in rural California, and represent communities of color. The mission of the Water Justice Clinic will be to strengthen water systems in those communities to provide residents with access to clean, affordable, and safe drinking water.  The clinic will also advocate for policies that fund needed improvements to those systems, address groundwater contamination, and ensure that rural voices are fully represented in future California water management decisions.

The Water Justice Clinic will operate under the direction of Camille Pannu, a graduate of UC Berkeley School of Law who has worked on environmental justice cases for the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment as an Equal Justice Works Fellow in the San Joaquin Valley. She has also clerked for Judge Stefan Underhill of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut and Judge Richard Paez of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Pannu said that King Hall students will play a critical role in the clinic’s work, assisting underserved communities and partnering with grassroots organizations such as the Community Water Center while receiving training in water justice and related issues. The Water Justice Clinic will begin enrolling students in Fall 2017.