Joy Radice, director of clinical programs and associate professor of law, and the University of Tennessee College of Law Legal Clinic were awarded the Volunteer of the Year Award by the Knoxville Area Urban League (KAUL). Presented during the KAUL Equal Opportunity Awards Gala, the award honors an individual or individuals who have made a significant impact on the programs and services of the Urban League and the community. Radice works alongside KAUL’s Expungement Coordinator Jackie Robson in their Workforce Department to offer free legal services to KAUL’s justice involved clients who are applying for jobs, looking for improved housing, and seeking to restore their citizenship rights.succe
Each semester, more than 30 students, professors, and staff working with the Expungement Clinic assist KAUL clients in cleaning up their criminal histories, reinstating their driver’s licenses, and restoring their citizenship rights, including the right to vote. In the past two years, the clinic estimates law students have provided over $100,000 in free legal services for this vital project.
“In working with KAUL’s clients on these complex legal issue, students gain valuable legal experience and their work changes lives,” said Radice, “Students have to analyze and apply a complicated set of statutes to a client’s criminal history, argue motions in criminal court, and present evidence and witness testimony in circuit court hearings that support their restoration petitions.”
KAUL has hosted the annual fundraiser gala for 34 years as part of the organization’s mission of empowering the underserved toward economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights.