From Student Fellow to Community Advocate

By Levi Colonna-Bevis, 2024 Rural Summer Legal Corps (RSLC) Fellow and 2025 Fellow in the Design-Your-Own Fellowship Program. Levi shared how his Student Fellowship inspired him to continue his work at his host organization and helped him identify needs in the communities he serves to create and tailor a Fellowship project that addresses them. Levi’s Fellowship is sponsored by Fenwick & West LLP. 

From a young age, I knew I wanted to work in the legal field to support my community. I grew up in rural Alabama, and I quickly learned that access to legal services was more challenging for rural communities. These experiences sparked a passion for public service that guided my academic and professional career, and this passion led me to law school. While in law school, I had the great privilege and opportunity to serve as a Rural Summer Legal Corps (RSLC) fellow with Inland Counties Legal Services (ICLS) in Southern California. The RSLC program pairs law students with legal aid organizations serving rural communities nationwide to improve access to legal services in what many call “legal deserts,” or rural communities that don’t have adequate or any nearby legal service organizations. Now, I am grateful to build on my experience by serving rural communities across San Bernardino and Riverside counties in Southern California as an Equal Justice Works fellow. 

Growing up in a blue-collar family on a cattle farm in rural northwest Alabama, I knew firsthand the challenges rural communities face in accessing robust and affordable legal services. My experiences in Alabama, and my college years in rural northern Mississippi, strengthened my passion for enhancing rural communities’ access to essential legal services and encouraged me to become a first-generation lawyer who could speak to these challenges. I attended law school at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University to pursue a career in public interest law, so RSLC was a great fit for both my career goals and my passion for public service. 

In law school, I became more familiar with legal aid work and realized it was the right career path for me. I have long been interested in constitutional law, administrative law, and housing law. Likewise, as an openly gay man, I wanted to support LGBTQ+ community work throughout my career. When exploring legal aid organizations, ICLS was a perfect match for me because their wide array of legal service teams includes housing, systemic impact litigation, and LGBTQ+ teams among others, which allowed me to explore my legal areas of interest while also engaging in hands-on work to support local communities. 

During my RSLC Student Fellowship at ICLS, my team sought to challenge unlawful practices impeding communities’ access to public benefits, housing, and other essential services. I had the opportunity to work with and learn from top-notch attorneys to address systemic regional challenges in areas such as housing, healthcare access, and LGBTQ+ matters. I received training for trauma-informed lawyering and community lawyering practices—both areas which are usually not taught in law school yet are crucial for public interest work.  

Through our team’s work, I recognized that, while there were several organizations in the region providing housing and healthcare services for people living with HIV, there were no local legal aid organizations specifically working with people living with HIV. I also knew that Equal Justice Works has opportunities allowing graduating law students and attorneys to create their own Fellowships to address specific challenges in their communities because of the RSLC Student Fellowship, so there were opportunities for me to help fill the gap.  

I was deeply influenced by my time at ICLS to return after graduation because attorneys and staff alike were fiercely committed to our communities and clients, and every person I met truly cared for the well-being of those around them. After further research and discussions with ICLS, I pursued and was deeply honored to be selected for Equal Justice Works’ Design-Your-Own Fellowship program. 

Through my experience as an RSLC Student Fellow with ICLS, I found a true calling in legal aid and saw firsthand the issues faced by both rural residents and members of the LGBTQ+ community — two communities that are close to my heart. I also gained the connections, confidence, and expertise to pursue a highly competitive Equal Justice Works Fellowship made possible by ICLS and my sponsor, Fenwick & West. 

As I continue my work from my Student Fellowship in the project that I have built at ICLS, I am proud to be moving the needle on access to legal assistance for people living with HIV as an Equal Justice Works Fellow, thanks to both ICLS and RSLC. 

Our multi-pronged project seeks to connect people living with HIV to the medical services they need while addressing any discrimination they may experience in accessing these services, engage a community lawyering model to inform people living with HIV of their rights under federal and California law, and build capacity for future work to address discrimination in housing, employment, and other challenges in Southern California. Through this project, I hope to raise awareness of the challenges people living with HIV face in communities across the nation, provide legal services and resources to meet those challenges, and build out a program that can continue to address these challenges for many years to come. I am also incredibly excited to return to ICLS to deepen my community relationships and learn from some of the region’s most dedicated community advocates. 

It is an honor to be able to serve low-income and rural communities in Inland Southern California through this fellowship, and I am deeply grateful to Equal Justice Works, ICLS, and Fenwick & West for making this opportunity possible.

To learn more about Levi’s Fellowship, click here. If you are a law student looking for opportunities in public interest law, click here.