After graduating from Yale University, Erica did research on immigration and education, as a Bush fellow at the Center for Child Development and Social Policy at Yale (now called The Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy). Before matriculating into the University of Wisconsin Law School as an Advanced Opportunity Fellow, she worked at Cleary Gottlieb Steen and Hamilton in New York City and at the founding site for the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnerships at Boston Medical Center. She was a public benefits and housing eviction attorney at Legal Action of Wisconsin Inc. for over a decade. She was the inaugural Clinical Instructor of the Eviction Defense Clinic (EDC), as part of the Economic Justice Institute at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She is the founder and Executive Director.

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, she attended the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she studied international negotiations in Japan. During law school she worked at the Coalition of Wisconsin Aging and Health Groups as a benefits specialist. After law school, she practiced at a private law firm and was subsequently appointed by Governor Walker to serve in the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services. Most recently she directed human resources, accounting, and administration for Aviles Plastics. As a vegan activist, she volunteers at a sanctuary.

After graduating from Macalester College with a degree in International Studies and History, Laura started her career in Washington DC. There, she interned for a number of non-profits and NGOs (including the Search for Common Ground and Witness for Peace), and served the Northern Virginia Latinx community through her work with the Comité Hispano de Virginia. After moving to Madison, Laura worked as a bilingual crisis response advocate at DAIS, and then as a bilingual housing counselor and program assistant for 10 years with the Tenant Resource Center. She’s thrilled to be serving the Dane County community in both Spanish and English as Paralegal for the Peoples Law Center.

Alyssa Medin is a rising Senior at St. Olaf College majoring in Philosophy, Political Science, and French with a pre-law track. In college, she spent time studying abroad in Paris and has published in undergraduate research journals on subjects of justice/injustice in an interdisciplinary light. As a Svoboda Legal Scholar, she engaged as a Summer Fellow at the Eviction Defense Clinic associated with UW-Madison in 2022. In her role, she worked alongside law students and attorneys on live eviction cases and gained experience with paralegal tasks and legal research and writing. Since then, she has continued to foster her interest in human rights and will apply her interests to housing law as a summer intern at the People’s Law Center.