Sick of having to explain to courthouse personnel why you should get free copies? Sick of frivolous SOI challenges from opposing counsel? This session is for you! Knowing Rule 145 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure backwards and forwards, along with its intricacies, is an essential tool for any lawyer working with limited- to no-income clients. This workshop will provide all the tools needed to accurately and easily fill out an SOI form (making sure you are using the right one), persuasively communicate with court personnel to ensure your client’s SOI is honored, and zealously defend against SOI challenges.
Family Clinic Staff Attorney, St. Mary's Center for Legal and Social Justice
Stephanie Medellin is the staff attorney for the Family Law Clinic at the Center for Legal and Social Justice at St. Mary’s University School of Law. Stephanie represents clients in divorce, adoption, name change, and probate cases in court. She also co-teaches clinic seminar... Read More →
Passionately and effectively advocating for clients is a good fight that rewards legal practitioners with their own double-edged sword. On one side, playing a part in securing wins for those who need them most and camaraderie working alongside others committed to the same fight. The downside of this good work builds up over time: exhaustion from knowing there is an ever-growing number of cases, clients, and problems to solve, accumulated grief from the inevitable losses, and secondary trauma from dealing in difficult issues, some of which go beyond the capabilities of legal practitioners.
Michael and Penelope are advocates who have felt these feelings through years of working in various legal aid fields, including environmental justice, family, fair housing, criminal, and community development work. Everyone’s journey to taking care of themselves is different, but we will share our stories and lessons learned in our journeys of acknowledging the very real difficulty of burnout and finding pathways to sustainability. This presentation will focus on specific ways to process and manage your case load, celebrate wins, build community inside and outside of the legal field, and connect with specific mental health and wellbeing resources. Attendees will have various opportunities to reflect on their own wellbeing and consider emotional, physical, and mental health as a part of their legal practice.
Think of it this way: you are not just an advocate. First and foremost, you are a person who practices advocacy. We hope this presentation encourages you and provides specific tools to help sustain your advocacy.
Title IX is often viewed through a compliance lens, but for many students, it functions as a critical access-to-justice framework impacting safety, educational access, and long-term stability across both K–12 and higher education settings.
This session provides a practical overview of Title IX under the 2020 regulations, including the role of the Title IX Coordinator, reporting and response obligations, supportive measures, and intersections with the Clery Act. Presenters will examine how institutional policies and processes affect vulnerable and underserved student populations, particularly those experiencing overlapping challenges such as housing insecurity and intimate partner violence.
The session will also explore prevention as an early intervention strategy and provide an overview of the hearing and advisor process, including due process protections and common barriers students face when navigating institutional systems. In addition, the session will address how Title IX intersects with broader civil rights frameworks, including Title VI, and the implications for case classification, reporting pathways, and institutional response.
Through a multidisciplinary lens, this session connects compliance requirements to real-world advocacy, equipping attendees with actionable insight to better support clients interacting with school-based Title IX systems.
This session is particularly relevant for attorneys and advocates representing students in K–12 and higher education systems or working with survivors of gender-based violence.
Every rural community deserves a legal system that is both high-functioning and well-resourced. But lawyer scarcity across much of Texas makes such systems aspirational. This session will discuss solutions to the problem of rural legal deserts: Programs that have supported rural doctors for decades can be models for recruiting rural lawyers; Lawyers' educational, licensing, and practice structures can be updated and tailored to rural needs; and courts can modernize their practices. Learn about recent innovations and successes in these areas, and share your own approaches to rural lawyer recruitment.
Senior Staff Attorney, Dedman School of Law, Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center
Camilla Hsu joined the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center as a senior policy attorney in September 2024. Her work focuses on litigation related to Due Process and the Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel and supporting the Center’s mission of advocating for innovative criminal legal... Read More →
