Some students may find themselves in trouble with the law and have very few resources to use, but the Community Legal Information Center is a place for students and the community to seek free legal advice and information.
Former Chico State professor Edward Bronson founded CLIC in 1970 and the program will be celebrating its 40th anniversary in spring 2010, said Jill Menius, administration director for CLIC.
Located in Room 102 at 25 Main St. in Chico, the goal of CLIC is to increase the amount of clients served every year.
“We mainly serve the lower social-economic income people who are just at the worst of the worst and they need free help,” Menius said.
CLIC is available for people who can’t afford an attorney and who don’t know what to do, she said.
There are 12 areas of the law ranging from consumer protection to workers’ rights, CLIC members work in individual departments, focusing on their specific area of law.
Students mostly utilize the housing law department and the misdemeanors, tickets and traffic department, Menius said.
The role of CLIC is to help prepare people for things that may take place in court and help clients fill out various types of paperwork, such as requests for restraining orders.
CLIC also helps people explore their options if convicted of a crime, such as community service versus imprisonment.
This CLIC organization is the largest in the nation and is the largest of its size at the undergraduate level, Menius said.
CLIC is a student run operation of 120 students supervised by four attorneys, who are also faculty members at Chico State, she said.
Most students who work at CLIC are political science or criminal justice majors, but they also accept students from other majors to work there, Menius said.
The community outreach program personnel are all recreation majors, she said.
The task of the outreach department is to plan events for awareness and fundraising.
“Each department does an event to promote their department,” said Alex Garcia, outreach intern at CLIC.
Though CLIC members work hard to get raise awareness about their services, some students are unaware of the resources CLIC offers.
“I don’t even know who they are,” said DeeDee Talleya, junior math major. “Some programs are well known because they advertise better.”
Because she was unaware of this service, Talleya worked through a previous legal problem alone.
If she had known about CLIC, Talleya said she would have used the service.
The center’s services are free for community members and students.
The program is partially funded through Associated Students as well as Chico State’s political science department. It also receives a funding grant from local government.
With the help of its funding, the CLIC program has changed over time to better serve the community.
“We have gone from one program to 12 and in 40 years we have grown a lot,” Menius said.
Francesca Nesfield can be reached at
fnesfield@theorion.com
