Congratulations to May’s Pro Bono Volunteers of the Month: Sri Pernankil, LT Edwards, and Anthony-Ray Sepulveda
Editor's note: The Pro Bono Board, a student group committed to expanding pro bono knowledge and opportunities to students, names a Pro Bono Volunteer of the Month. The May honorees are Pro Bono Board founders Sri Pernankil, LT Edwards, and Anthony-Ray Sepulveda, all ’15. Becca Smith, a member of the board, wrote this story on their work. For more information on pro bono work, visit the Pro Bono Service Initiative website or contact Shehnaz Mansuri in the Office of Career Services.
Sri Pernankil, LT Edwards, and Anthony-Ray Sepulveda, all ’15, started the Pro Bono Board during their first year at the Law School. They were all interested in pursuing public service careers after law school, and realized there wasn’t a streamlined way to find and participate in volunteer legal work in the meantime.
“The Pro Bono Board started with three 1Ls and a desire to do something,” Edwards remembered. Along with other students, they approached Shehnaz Mansuri, the Law School’s newly hired Pro Bono Service Initiative Manager, and began formalizing the school’s new focus on pro bono service. Two years later, the Pro Bono Board continues to do what it was created to do: help law students help people.
Pernankil, Edwards, and Sepulveda have all participated in pro bono work over the past three years. Pernankil has worked at the New Orleans Public Defender’s Office through Spring Break of Service, provided walk-in legal services at the Woodlawn Clinic, participated in the Cabrini Green Legal Aid and LAF expungment workshops, provided service at the Lawndale Christian Legal Center, and answered questions through Illinois Legal Aid Online. She also worked as an extern at the Federal Community Defenders in Hammond, Indiana. After graduation, Pernankil will work at the Colorado Public Defender’s Office, where she is excited to use her Law School pro bono experiences to provide the best defense to her clients.
Edwards has worked with the Constitutional Rights Foundation, where he helped third graders understand how trials work and what their rights are in court. With his 2L summer firm, he helped represent an individual on death row. With the American Moot Court Association, he judged a moot court championship involving undergraduate finalists from across the nation and provided feedback on both substance and form. After law school, Edwards will be clerking for a federal district court judge and then a federal court of appeals judge in hopes of preparing an application to a U.S. Attorney's office to become a federal prosecutor.
Sepulveda has provided more than 850 hours of legal assistance across a host of organizations. He has helped juveniles expunge crimes, such as truancy or possession of a “look alike substance,” off their records; assisted first responders with drafting their wills; helped sexual assault victims seek justice; and taught elementary school students about the Constitution and the criminal justice system. After graduation, Sepulveda is committed to a public interest law career. After passing the bar, his goal is to apply to be a state prosecutor in Arizona.
On the importance of pro bono work, the students shared similar insights. “Not only do I believe that it is a necessary aspect of our legal education and the counterpart to the classroom instruction, it also helps keep law students centered, grounded and gives us a much needed perspective,” Pernankil said. For Sepulveda, pro bono work consistently inspired him to study harder because it reminded him why he came to the Law School. The Pro Bono Board will continue after the founders graduate, and will continue working to instill a pro bono culture into the heart of the school.