Posted: September 26th, 2006

Contact: Kirk Dillman, President of the Board, 213-694-1101
Robert García, Executive Director, Center for Law in the Public Interest,
and Director of The City Project, 213-977-1035

The Board of Trustees of the Center for Law in the Public Interest has elected to wind down and dissolve the Center after a remarkable 35-year history of carrying out a commitment to social justice. The Board further endorsed a spin-off of The City Project to Community Partners to carry on the proud legacy of social change through law.

“We have won landmark victories over the years in civil rights, health, environmental quality and equality, affordable housing, employment discrimination, First Amendment rights, criminal justice, and consumer protection,” according to Carlyle Hall, a founder of the Center and Chairman of the Board. “In our very first case, the Century Freeway litigation, for example, we creatively combined environmental and civil rights claims to provide transit for all, promote cleaner air, and provide quality jobs and affordable housing for people of color displaced by the construction of the Freeway.”

“The City Project has worked successfully to green the Los Angeles River with healthy parks, schools, and communities for the past six years at CLIPI,” according to Robert García, CLIPI’s Executive Director and Director of The City Project there. “This work is deeply rooted in CLIPI’s tradition of seeking equal justice, democracy, and livability for all. We look forward to carrying on this work with Community Partners.”

The City Project’s work has recently received the L.A. River Award from the City of Los Angeles and awards from the Southern California Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Board, and the Cultural Landscape Foundation for extensively publishing research and findings on urban parks and their benefits for the L.A. River, improving the quality of life in Southern California and beyond, improving water quality and restoring habitat through the greening of the Los Angeles River, and setting a national model for the urban park movement.

“We all wish Robert García and his team the best in continuing The City Project. He has done a tremendous job over the past six years creating parks and schools in the most underserved communities in Los Angeles,” according to Carlyle Hall.

Traditionally, the Center, one of the first public interest firms in the country, relied primarily on litigation to achieve results, and awards of attorneys’ fees to support its work. It set a model that other public interest firms adopted and extended to other fields. In light of the increasing difficulty in relying on litigation and fee awards in public interest cases, the Board concluded that it was time to dissolve the Center.

The City Project has pioneered the use of diverse strategies to achieve social change through law, including community empowerment, coalition building, multidisciplinary research and analyses, communications campaigns, policy and legal advocacy outside the courts, creatively engaging opponents to find common ground, and litigation within the context of a broader campaign.

“Robert García and The City Project are nationally recognized leaders in developing a new urban greening agenda that puts children and families first, and includes the needs of the Latino community in ways that no one else has,” according to Lydia Camarillo, a CLIPI Board Member since 2001. “This work will continue to gain in stature in light of the National Latino Congreso held in Los Angeles September 6-10, 2006, which emphasized a new Latino environmental agenda that draws in significant part on the pioneering work of Robert and The City Project.”

“Community Partners strengthens Southern California’s supply of community building ideas, innovations, leaders, and social entrepreneurs,” according to Paul Vandeventer, President of Community Partners. “We look forward to having The City Project join our team.”

The Center opened its doors on December 1, 1971, with support from the Ford Foundation and individual supporters including Warren Christopher and Richard Riordan. Carlyle Hall, Brent Rushforth, John Phillips, and Ric Sutherland were associates at O’Melveny & Meyers who left the firm to start the Center. The Century Freeway was CLIPI’s very first case. In California’s “most important” environmental case, the state Supreme Court upheld CLIPI’s position requiring environmental impact reports for private as well as public projects. The Center also saved Watts Towers, a public art masterpiece. CLIPI championed equal treatment for women and people of color under the Blake consent decree against the LAPD, and in private-sector jobs. The Sundance litigation led to more humane treatment of public intoxication, dropping arrests from 50,000 to less than 300 per year. CLIPI exposed and blocked bribes by U.S. corporations to foreign governments and Watergate “hush money.” The Center created affordable housing by challenging exclusionary land use plans. Orange County, for example, at first agreed to invest $7.7 million for affordable housing, then voluntarily invested $56 million because resulting public benefits were so great. CLIPI helped preserve and restore key wetland habitat in the 250-acre Ballona Wetlands. The Center championed the “consumer trust fund” in class action cases–the resulting California Consumer Protection Foundation led to a $3 billion charitable endowment.

“I want to thank each of the trustees, present and former, for all of the time, effort and resources that they have contributed to CLIPI over the years. CLIPI’s reputation for delivering the highest quality legal services on behalf of the under-represented is due in no small measure to the Board’s efforts,” according to Carlyle Hall. CLIPI expects to wind up its affairs over the next few months and to fulfill all its obligations to clients, foundations and financial supporters, and creditors. The spin-off to Community Partners is subject to the Center and Community Partners entering a definitive agreement for the transaction, and satisfaction of regulatory compliance requirements.

Robert García will be the Executive Director of The City Project at Community Partners. He founded The City Project in 2000 and moved it to the Center that year. He has been Director of The City Project since 2000, and Executive Director of the Center since 2003. He has spearheaded community alliances to create great urban parks at the Cornfield, Taylor Yard, Baldwin Hills, and Ascot Hills. He served as Chair of the Los Angeles Unified School District School Bond Citizens’ Oversight Committee from 2000 to 2005, overseeing the investment of over $14 billion for school construction and modernization. He graduated from Stanford and Stanford Law School, where he served on the Board of Editors of the Stanford Law Review.

Andrea Luquetta will serve as Associate Director of The City Project. Ms. Luquetta graduated from UCLA School of Law with concentrations in Public Interest Law and Critical Race Studies. Prior to law school, she served for six years as Director of Housing and Community Investment for a statewide community development advocacy organization, where she helped secure over $1.3 billion in investment for low-income communities. She also served for one year as an organizer for a statewide consumer advocacy group, leading campaigns to secure bank investment in minority communities. She graduated from Drew University in 1996 with a degree in Economics.

Aubrey White will serve as Program Director of The City Project. Aubrey has experience with community organizing and has worked with the housing advocacy group LA Community Action Network in efforts to save affordable housing for downtown’s extremely low-income residents. Her research includes issues of human trafficking, food production land use practices, and Los Angeles historical geography. She graduated from Occidental College with a degree in Religious Studies.

Some Trustees from the Center’s Board plan to serve on the Advisory Board of The City Project.

For a history highlighting the Center’s 35 years of social justice work, visit our web site at http://clipi.org/about/history.html. For our 2006 fact sheet, visit http://clipi.org/pdf/FactSheet2006.pdf.