University of Washington Law June 2012 Panama

Start Date: Jun 11, 2012 12:00 AM
End Date: Jun 18, 2012 12:00 AM

Law Brigades volunteers will spend 8 days in Panama providing pro-bono legal services to the rural community of Eastern Panama. Based on research, it was determined that the leading legal need in this community was property rights and land titling. Therefore, our goal is to provide legal support and guidance to every community member throughout the land titling process. Land titles will provide economic security for many farming and small business owning families, as the majority of our target beneficiaries have been working on their land for decades without having gone through the necessary legal process to secure ownership of their land. We provide the community with legal assistance in two folds: Free legal aid clinics and legal education workshops. During the free legal aid clinic portion of the brigade, we conduct surveys to gather profile of each household and see which step of the land titling process they are in. With the joint effort of Panamanian lawyers, we are able to provide community members with any legal guidance needed. The legal education workshops portion is solely led by our student volunteers. We seek to empower our community members by providing them with legal capacity building workshops in various topics such as: the various phases in the land titling process, government land titling institutions, property rights, business rights, conflict resolution, etc. Student are able to put their legal research to practice and shadow lawyers in developing solutions to various legal problems. The brigade experience is a life changing experience for both the community members and our student volunteers!