Fellowships

Jaqueline is a first-generation law school graduate and proud daughter of immigrants. She was born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley. She holds a master’s degree in History from California State University Los Angeles and her J.D. from Southwestern Law School. While in law school, she was a board member of the Latino/a Law Students Association, the Student Bar Association, and was a fellow for the Judge Harry Pregerson Public Service Fellowship. In 2021, she had the opportunity to work on the Policy Team at Inner City as a summer law clerk. This experience taught her the important connection between policy work and direct services. During her last semester of law school, she had the privilege of being a clinical student in the newly formed Eviction Defense Clinic in conjunction with Inner City, where she dived into learning about housing law and worked with clients. She is excited to return to Inner City as a TDP Fellow and looks forward to continue growing her passion for housing justice.

Arturo joined Inner City Law Center as a Housing Justice Fellow in July 2022. At Southwestern Law School, he served on the executive board of the Labor and Employment Law Association, where he emphasized his support for labor unions and employee-side legal representation. He also served as an intern at Inner City Law Center in 2019, and as a Peggy Browning Fellow at the Wage Justice Center in 2020. Currently, he is a board member on the Elysian Valley Riverside Neighborhood Council, where he advocates on behalf of his predominantly working-class neighbors by building support for expanded public transit routes and food access. He graduated with a BA from the University of California Riverside in Political Science with an emphasis in Law and Society in 2017, and with a JD from Southwestern Law School in 2021. Arturo likes to spend his free time going to both multiplex and independent movie theaters to catch the latest features on the best formats possible.

Born and raised in Washington, DC, Sam first moved to Los Angeles to attend college at UCLA. After graduating, Sam stayed in the city and worked as a Page at NBC Universal and then as a reporter for the Los Angeles bureau of the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper.

After working as a foreign correspondent in his own country for two years, Sam left Los Angeles to attend Harvard Law School. In law school, Sam served as the President of the Student Mental Health Association and represented clients in the housing and criminal defense clinics.

Sam is now working as a legal fellow in the Tenant Defense Project and is very happy to be back in his strange, adoptive city.

Peter joined Inner City Law Center as a Tenant Defense Fellow. After working in education, he went to law school to better address the systemic issues of legally-sanctioned extraction that harm students and families in poverty. In law school, he focused on housing and education, working through internships and clinics with the Tenant Defense Project at ICLC, the Education Equity team at ACLU SoCal, and the Lanterman Education Rights program. He also explored his interest in using technology and public records to support legal advocacy in the Community Lawyering in Education Clinic and the Covid Behind Bars Data Project and by serving as a managing editor of the Journal of Law and Technology. As an undergraduate, he studied Liberal Arts at St. John’s College, and he later earned an MA in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Mississippi and a JD from UCLA School of Law.

Ted is a NAPABA Law Foundation Community Law Fellow at Inner City Law Center’s Affirmative Litigation team. Having grown up as a low-income, undocumented youth in Koreatown, Los Angeles, Ted is committed to serving those who are most deeply affected and harmed by racial and economic injustice.

Throughout law school, Ted served the community as a clinical student at East Bay Community Law Center’s Consumer Justice Clinic and Consumer Justice Workshop.

In May 2021, Ted received his J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law, where he won the Pro Bono Champion Award and the Honorable Mention for the Brian M. Sax Award for Excellence in Clinical Advocacy.

Jeff joined Inner City Law Center as a Tenant Defense fellow in September 2022. He is a graduate of Southwestern Law school, where he received his J.D. with a concentration in Public Interest and served as the president of the Homelessness Prevention Law Project, the co-chair of the Public Interest Law Committee, the vice president of the Student Bar Association, and the treasurer of the Southwestern chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. Previously, Jeff interned at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Homeless Youth Project, the Federal Defender’s office in the Eastern District of California, and the Alternate Public Defender’s office. He also participated in Southwestern Law’s Eviction Defense Clinic in the spring of 2022. Prior to law school, Jeff received a BFA in acting from California State University, Fullerton.

Shyann Murphy is a Housing Justice Fellow at Inner City Law Center. While in law school, Shyann served as a Co-Chair of the Re-Entry Clinic with A New Way of Life, where she worked on expungement petitions for low-income Angelenos and participated in the UCLA Veterans Legal Clinic, performing direct legal services to veterans. Shyann spent her first summer of law school at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, where she worked on impact litigation challenging Los Angeles’ treatment of unhoused individuals, litigation she continued working on through the Human Rights Litigation Clinic in her 2L year. In her second summer of law school, Shyann interned with the ACLU Human Rights Program, where she worked on litigation challenging racially discriminatory criminal sentencing, parole, and probation. A graduate of the Epstein Program for Public Interest Law and Policy, Shyann is committed to a career in public interest. Shyann tries to spend as much of her free time as she can with her cat Poundcake. Shyann holds a B.A. in Gender Studies and Political Science from the University of Southern California and a J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Matthew Nussbaum joined Inner City Law Center’s Preventing and Ending Homelessness Project this year after graduating from NYU Law School. During law school, he co-directed the Prison Teaching Project – a program offering classes on legal research methods to prisoners in Rikers, Taconic Correctional Facility, and Bedford Correctional Facility. He also participated in the school’s Immigrant Rights Clinic, where he worked to contest the deportation of a client, and the Racial Justice Clinic, where he prepared a client for their upcoming parole board hearing. During the summers, Matt interned at Staten Island Legal Services’ Housing Unit and the Public Defender’s Office of Alameda County.

Prior to law school, Matt worked as an assistant paralegal for Fragomen, a law firm specializing in business immigration, and was a member of the Glide Harm Reduction Clinic in San Francisco. Matt received his B.A. in Political Science from Stanford University, graduating in 2016.

Benjamin Phillips joined Inner City Law Center in 2021 as a Housing Justice Fellow in ICLC’s homeless veterans project. From 2020-2021, he clerked for Senior U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn O. Silver in Phoenix, Arizona. In law school, Benjamin interned with the United States Department of Justice, Public Counsel, and the Homeless Action Center. He served as a research assistant for Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. Prior to law school, Benjamin was an AmeriCorps member with City Year Los Angeles at UCLA Community School, teaching and mentoring ninth grade students. He also clerked for Mental Health Advocacy Systems and taught religious school at Wilshire Boulevard Temple. He earned his B.A. in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Southern California and his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Haley joined Inner City Law Center as a Housing Justice Fellow on the Tenant Defense Project in August, 2021. While in law school at Southwestern in Los Angeles, Haley was a board member on the homelessness prevention law project student association, which sparked her interest in pursing a legal career defending tenants from eviction. As a student, Haley worked in family law, immigration, and employment law. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Brandman University and a Juris Doctorate from Southwestern, where she focused on public interest law. In her free time, Haley enjoys walking around Los Angeles with her two terrier rescues, Vin Scully and Ruth Barker Ginsburg.

While studying law in Nashville, Chelsea interned with the Nashville Public Defender’s Office for two years. After witnessing firsthand the effects of poverty in the rural South, as well as the frequent interaction between homelessness and the oppression of the criminal legal system, she was inspired to become an advocate for people facing eviction. She has a BS in Sociology from Middle Tennessee State University and a JD from Belmont University College of Law. In her free time, Chelsea can be found hiking with her dog, Ziggy.

Born and raised in west Los Angeles, Max Spivak is a May 2021 graduate of the University of New Mexico School of Law with a certificate from the Law and Indigenous Peoples Program and coursework in federal Indian law, tribal law, and environmental law. Max previously worked for Native American Rights Fund’s Anchorage office, the Southwest Women’s Law Center in Albuquerque, DNA-People’s Legal Services in Window Rock, Navajo Nation, and the Domestic Violence Legal Clinic in Chicago (n/k/a Ascend Justice). In 2018, Max received a B.A. in International Studies from American University in Washington, D.C. Aside from his work at Inner City Law Center, Max’s interests and experience include environmental and cultural preservation, pro-poor economics and policy, and intersectional reproductive justice.

Jincy joined ICLC in September 2022 as a Tenant Defense Project Legal Fellow. Jincy received her J.D. from UCLA School of Law with a specialization in Public Interest Law & Policy. While in law school, Jincy volunteered with tenant and worker’s rights clinics throughout Los Angeles and interned with the California Labor Commissioner, Los Angeles Center for Community Law and Action (LACCLA), and the Warehouse Worker Resource Center. Jincy was also an editor for the UCLA Law Review’s online platform, Discourse. In her free time, Jincy enjoys being outside and working as an unpaid, un-hired ice cream taste tester.