This story originally appeared in Res Ipsa, the UMKC School of Law alumni magazine. To learn more, read the full issue or visit the School of Law website.
When it became clear the COVID-19 pandemic was going to be a long-term challenge, the School of Law was left with its own challenge: how to continue its mission of supporting students and the community during a global pandemic.
One key part of that response has been the Truman Fellows program, instituted in Fall 2020. This new initiative fills two key roles:
- Providing jobs for recent law alumni, some of whom have had difficulty securing jobs due to the pandemic
- Supporting community members with their legal needs, especially those that have been caused or worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic
The program — named after President Harry S. Truman, who attended the Kansas City School of Law from 1923 to 1925 — was launched with a $25,000 grant from the Kansas City Regional COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund. This initial grant enabled a cohort of four fellows to be placed in the School of Law’s Entrepreneurial Legal Services Clinic, Tax Clinic, Self-Help Legal Clinic and Digital Initiatives team.
Together, this group assisted small business owners applying for emergency federal funding, helped community members navigate pandemic-related tax issues and worked with the State of Kansas to develop an online system for domestic violence victims to obtain restraining orders while courts were closed. Additional support from United Way established the Tenant Representation Initiative, allowing an additional four fellows to work solely on keeping clients in their homes during the pandemic.
Jeffrey Thomas — associate dean for strategic initiatives and graduate programs, Daniel L. Brenner faculty scholar and a professor of law — helped set up the Truman Fellows program. He says this work is especially important today because many pandemic relief efforts have a legal element. A great example, he says, is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s temporary halt on evictions instituted in September 2020. To be protected, tenants need to fill out a form and serve it to their landlord, which the landlord can then dispute in court. At this point, the tenant needs a lawyer. That’s where the Truman Fellows can step in.
“There’s this solution out there — the moratorium on evictions — but the solution requires some legal knowledge and assistance, and we can play a role that way,” he says.
David White, a visiting professor and of counsel at Foland, Wickens, Roper, Hofer and Crawford, P.C., oversees the Tenant Representation Initiative. He says what started as an eviction project eventually grew into something broader.
“Because of the pandemic, the folks that are in these service industry jobs aren’t able to go to work, and so as a result they don’t have income,” he says. “For some of them it has been a tipping point for them both emotionally and mentally — if your housing is unstable, it throws everything off.”
Adjunct Clinical Professor Brian Larios, who also assists with tenant representation, says the impact he is able to make alongside the fellows is particularly profound.
“So many of the clients we represent are at the doorstep of desperation. They have nowhere else to turn,” he says. “To literally see their tears of joy as they realize the assistance that we will be able to provide is incredibly rewarding.”
Working with United Way, the School of Law has been able to secure funding for an additional cohort of fellows in early 2021 that will continue to focus on eviction work. This will become increasingly important, Thomas says, whenever the CDC discontinues its temporary halt on evictions.
Larios says the work of the Truman Fellows — who so far have assisted more than 218 people with their eviction cases — is directly in line with the Law School’s mission.