Professors Adams, Piccard and Scully lead Social Justice Advocacy Concentration program at Stetson

Starting in the fall semester, professors Kristen Adams and Ann Piccard will join Professor Judith Scully to lead the Social Justice Advocacy Concentration program at Stetson University. Together, these three professors will also lead Stetson’s pro bono efforts.

Professor Judith Scully launched Stetson’s Social Justice Advocacy program in 2012 and invited Professor Robert Bickel to serve as co-coordinator. Professor Bickel is retiring this fall. The Social Justice Advocacy Concentration graduated its first full class of students in May 2014.

“I believe that the current challenges facing the legal system in the United States will not be solved merely through litigation in our court system. I feel compelled to educate students about the need to use their advocacy skills outside of the courtroom to urge legal reform,” said Professor Scully.

Since the program began, 22 students have graduated from Stetson with SJA concentration certificates. The students have helped refugees obtain legal assistance, spearheaded initiatives to help close the justice gap, created an urban gardening program for children in juvenile detention centers, challenged approaches to juvenile dependency in Florida law, helped public defenders representing transgender clients and juvenile clients with mental health challenges, helped homeless veterans obtain disability benefits, addressed the issue of criminalizing the homeless in the state, investigated the impact of second hand trauma, and created the curriculum for Stetson’s Street Law education program for middle school students.

Both professors Adams and Piccard have a long track record of working to close the justice gap.

“Serving as an Atlanta Legal Aid Fellow was a transformative experience for me and cemented my interest in social justice advocacy,” said Professor Adams.

After leaving Atlanta Legal Aid to return to her own firm, Adams had the opportunity to continue, for a short while, to represent public-housing tenants in a landlord-tenant dispute against the Atlanta Housing Authority.

“I was raised by politically progressive university professor parents, and had my first volunteer job, as a Head Start assistant, at age 12,” said Professor Piccard, who also joins the SJA team this fall. “Social justice advocacy is in my genes.”

Piccard began her legal career as a Reginald Heber Smith Community Law Fellow, a competitive, nation-wide program designed to attract highly qualified new lawyers to work with the federally-funded non-profit Legal Services Corporation. When her “Reggie” Fellowship concluded, Piccard went to work at Bay Area Legal Services, in Tampa, where she spent nearly 10 years, first as the pro bono coordinator supervising hundreds of volunteer lawyers, then as staff attorney and eventually supervising attorney for the Impact Litigation group at Bay Area.

Attending college during the Civil Rights Movement had a great impact on Professor Bickel’s desire to attend law school. Professor Bickel began his legal career with the U.S. Department of Justice Honors Program. He worked for the State of Florida with Lyndon Johnson’s first anti-poverty housing initiative. He created courses at Stetson during his 38-year tenure including the Constitutional Law and the Civil Rights course, the Employment Discrimination Law course and equal employment internship.

“Every subject I teach is in one form or another about people’s rights—the principle of equality,” said Professor Bickel.

In her legal practice, Professor Scully focused primarily on civil rights and criminal defense litigation She has been active in several human rights movements including the movement to end police violence in the black community in the city of Chicago; the movement to end contraceptive abuse against the bodies of women of color worldwide; the movement to respect women’s right to prenatal health care, as well as the right to obtain health care to terminate pregnancy; and the movement to end racial apartheid in South Africa.

“We must seek change not only in the courtroom but in the legislature, in administrative agencies, in local community and political organizations, and in ourselves by honing our advocacy skills to become the most effective leaders we can be,” said Professor Scully.

Jennifer Quijano J.D. ’13, the first graduate of Stetson’s SJA program, is now an attorney with the Legal Empowerment and Assistance Program in Brooklyn, New York, a legal assistance program that has been helping tenants avoid eviction and obtain repairs in the Bushwick neighborhood for close to a decade.

“Our graduates personify the meaning of social justice advocacy and the law’s highest purpose, to represent those who most need simple justice,” said Professor Bickel.

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Post date: Aug. 23, 2016

Media contact: Kate Bradshaw
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