From Classroom to Community: Tips and Strategies for Effective Community Engagement

Originally from Los Angeles, CA, Claudia Quintero is a staff attorney at Central West Justice Center, a subsidiary of Community Legal Aid. In her role, she leads the Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers Project, providing direct legal advocacy to farmworkers throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, conducting outreach to farmworkers, and community trainings. She is also involved with the Fairness for Farmworkers Coalition and has contributed to the proposal and efforts to pass the Fairness for Farmworkers Act, pushing for legislation that would entitle farmworkers to earn the state minimum wage and overtime pay.
Active in the western Massachusetts community, she is an adjunct professor teaching Law and Social Change at WNE School of Law and has previously served on the Pioneer Valley Workers Center boards; the Rosenberg Fund for Children; the coordinating committee of the ACLU of Massachusetts' Immigrant Protection Project; the board of the Massachusetts Bar Association as Hampden County regional director for the Young Lawyers Division. She has also served on the editorial board of The Young Lawyer and as chair of the Minorities in Profession Committee of the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division.
In recognition of her distinguished service and outstanding commitment to providing pro bono legal services to immigrants in Massachusetts, Claudia was awarded the Adams Pro Bono Publico Award from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's Standing Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services in 2017. She also received the Student of the Year Award from the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild in 2017. Additionally, she published an article relating to asylum and immigration law with the University of Massachusetts Law Review in 2018 and was recently selected for the Businesswest Class of 2021 40 under 40 for her professional contributions.
Claudia earned her Bachelor of Arts in 2010 from California State University, Los Angeles with a degree in Communication Studies, a Master of Science in Rhetoric from the University of Utah in 2013, and her Juris Doctorate (cum laude) from Western New England University School of Law. At WNE Law she was a Public Interest Scholar and an active leader in several student organizations including serving as a member of the WNE Law Review, the head of the National Lawyers Guild student chapter, and was the founder and president of the Latino/a Law Student Association.

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