OUR COALITION
The NuLawLab is the interdisciplinary innovation laboratory at Northeastern University School of Law. We are leaders in the emerging global Legal Design movement. Our programs, projects, seminars, and research allow us to build cross-disciplinary teams and community-based partnerships focused on transforming legal education, the legal profession, and the delivery of legal services. We do this work at the leading public interest law school in order to provide our students with the knowledge and skills to be the legal inventors of the future. We engage with the fields of art and design to create new strategies of legal empowerment.
City Life/Vida Urbana is a grassroots community organization committed to fighting for racial, social and economic justice and gender equality by building working class power. We promote individual empowerment, develop community leaders and build collective power to effect systemic change and transform society.
Our Values
SOLIDARITY – We believe it is vital to understand and act on the connection between your own self-interest and the interest of others while addressing power imbalances based on race, class, gender, and other oppressions.
HOUSING AS A HUMAN RIGHT – We believe one of the basic human rights is the right to affordable housing.
City of Boston Artists in Residence:
Pat Falco & Anthony Romero
Pat Falco: Artist in Residence, City of Boston, Housing Innovation Lab. Pat Falco is an artist and organizer from Boston. He received his BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Pat is working with the Housing Innovation Lab, which partners with different stakeholders to explore and test different ideas that increase housing affordability and opportunity.
Anthony Romero: Artist is Residence, City of Boston Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement. Anthony Romero is an artist, writer, and organizer committed to documenting and supporting artists and communities of color. His collaborative practice engages intercultural exchange and historical narratives in order to generate reparative counter-images and social transformation.
We help tenants in housing crisis due to fire, natural disaster, eviction, or condemnation.
Email housingstability@boston.gov or call 617-635-4200 to contact us. We also have information on emergency resources for tenants. Our goal is to put residents on the path to housing stability.
TENANT AND LANDLORD INFORMATION
We provide information to tenants and landlords about their rights and responsibilities.
PROGRAM AND RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
We develop tenant and landlord resources and programs. We want to promote the creation and preservation of stable and affordable housing in Boston.
ADVOCACY AND POLICY
We research, draft, and put in place policies that aim to prevent displacement. Our goal is to keep our communities intact.
Stable Ground addresses the complicated relationship between chronic housing insecurity, its psychologically traumatic impact, and municipal housing policy through a participatory community-based art and cultural program structured to inform the work of the City of Boston’s Office of Housing Stability. This project allowed us to create a residency program that embeds artists, legal designers, and trauma experts into community settings that contribute to local visual/performing arts exhibits and art-making events. These events have included facilitated conversations among artists, residents, activists, organizers, experts, and municipal leaders, all structured to inform existing OHS services and those in development.
SMFA at Tufts educates students who think through making. The work starts with the idea.We lead the way in preparing artists who start conversations that matter. Mentored closely by our faculty and staff, SMFA at Tufts students design individualized programs of study with open access to the vast resources of a major university and a world-class art museum. Our graduates are creative thinkers and problem-solvers who succeed in a wide variety of careers.
Special Thanks to the students in the Fall 2020 Socially Engaged Art Class. These students created PPE for Mutual Aide workers and other elements related to this project.
Runcible Studio
Runcible Studios is at home wherever the power of design thinking can effect positive change, and we love nothing better than helping to solve our clients' thorniest design challenges. We see ourselves as stewards: of our clients' goals, of our communities, of our climate, and of a tradition of collaboration between designers and the trades. Our mission is to bring rigor, delight, and ingenuity to every project, from start to finish.
Founded by Marilyn Moedinger, AIA, in 2014, Runcible has executed projects ranging from ground-up residential to extensive renovations of residences to commercial and industrial spaces, from high concept feasibility studies for developers to community engagement projects, mentorship, education, and even a retail shop.
We pride ourselves on balancing the big vision with the nuts and bolts realities of construction, and seek leverage points in things like zoning, codes, structure, and construction methodology. We believe the built environment is the ideal place to work for a better and more just world, and we strive to do that with a collaborative, creative, hard-working, and fun spirit.
Maverick Landing Community Services (MLCS)
Maverick Landing Community Services (MLCS) is a multi-service organization with a holistic approach and a strong focus on helping children, youth, and adults to develop 21st-century skills. We enhance the lives of the culturally and economically diverse residents of Maverick Landing East Boston, and surrounding communities by:
• Motivating people to achieve economic, educational, and personal goals;
• Linking people to support systems
•Creating leadership opportunities
• Strengthening youth, families, and community.
A global law firm, Ropes & Gray’s public service commitment is a hallmark of the firm, rooted in the example set by the firm’s founders more than a century and a half ago. Our attorneys, paralegals, summer associates and other professionals worldwide donated more than 155,000 hours of legal services in 2020. By providing direct representation and partnering with human rights, legal reform and other organizations, Ropes & Gray helps communities, nonprofits and small businesses that might otherwise lack access to legal services. For the Boston Housing Support Station, our team is providing IT expertise gleaned from the firm’s private sector work. More broadly, the firm’s public service efforts support organizations of all sizes. Notably, it has included launching the COVID Relief Coalition, a group of law firms, nonprofits, and public and private organizations, which assist small businesses in need of legal advice related to business interruptions caused by COVID-19. Our work has also included advocating for a more just and equitable society in and out of court. Read more about the firm’s public service commitment.
The Legal Innovation and Technology (LIT) Lab is an experiential program combining the vision of our Legal Innovation and Technology Institute with the pedagogy and legal services mission of our Clinical Programs. The Lab allows students to work as part of a consultancy and research & development (R&D) shop focused on legal tech and data science work. The Lab serves both non-profit and for-profit clients, with the latter subsidizing the former, when appropriate. Active areas of research involve, but are not limited to, the construction of expert systems/guided interviews (e.g., chatbots) and algorithmic codification of tacit knowledge (i.e., training computers to replicate human decisions). See examples.
Lab students develop legal technology and data science solutions for organizational clients (e.g., legal aid organizations, courts, firms, and non-profits), helping them improve efficiency and effectiveness. Theses services are provided to organizational clients, who frequently do not have in-house expertise in automating tools, engaging in process improvement, and data analytics.