What We Do
1. Bring Them Home Project
Our Bring Them Home Project is a family reunification initiative that is designed to reunite individuals who are victims of excessive, draconian prison sentences in California with their families. As part of our effort, we represent incarcerated clients with various release hearings, including youth offender parole and resentencing hearings. Our team regularly takes on the most difficult cases regardless of the type of offense or sentence. Prior to a hearing, we meet numerous times with our clients to prepare them for their hearings and for their successful transition from prison. Our team also meets with our clients’ families prior to the parole hearings to prepare them for the potential release of their loved ones. Our aim is to explore all legal options for early release and develop individualized plans that offer a holistic approach to each client’s needs. By going beyond securing our clients’ release date, we contribute to our clients’ long term healthy reunifications with their friends, relatives, and communities.
Ollin Law represents clients with the following types of hearings:
- Youth Offender Parole Hearings
- SB 1437 Petitions (Felony Murder)
- 1170d Resentencing Petitions
- Habeas Corpus Petitions
2. Welcome Home Reentry Program
Our Welcome Home Reentry Program aims to eliminate the barriers to reentry and opportunities resulting from criminal convictions and the trauma of incarceration. As part of our work, we offer recurring legal clinics at various strategic locations. Outreach is done in partnership with other organizations that provide: support groups for the families of incarcerated people; drug and alcohol treatment programs; and other community-based services. We also collaborate with diversion and restorative justice programs.
Our attorneys and staff conduct the post-conviction clinics, including reviewing records, determining eligibility and preparing the necessary court forms. We utilize mobile Livescan services at our clinics so that participants have their most updated conviction records. We handle all the service and filing requirements of each petition and ensure that each participant leaves the clinic with a clear understanding of the legal process and their legal obligations.
Ollin Law provides the following reentry/post-conviction legal services:
- Expungements (PC §1203.4)
- Certificates of Rehabilitation/Commutations (PC §§4852.01 et seq.)
- Sealing/Destruction of Arrest Records (PC §851.8)
- Reduce Felonies to Misdemeanors (PC 17b or Prop 47)
- Motions to Vacate (PC 1473.7)
3. Human Rights and Justice Litigation
Our team provides clients quality legal representation against government entities, including police departments and prisons. We work vigorously on behalf of victims of discrimination and abuse of power to hold liable parties accountable and ensure that victims of institutional misconduct receive fair and full recovery for the damages and trauma they sustained.
We represent people whose rights have been violated and advocate for those on the margins of society, including injustices against the working poor, migrants and indigenous people. We use our legal expertise to support indigenous communities in the fight for self determination and do trainings and advocate for the social integration of deportees with criminal convictions
Ollin Law’s team has achieved notable resolutions and achievements in cases involving:
- Police misconduct, including excessive force
- Wrongful convictions, including habeas petitions
- Native language and land rights
4. Healing Law
“The entire legal profession – lawyers, judges, law teachers—has become so mesmerized with the stimulation of the courtroom contest that we tend to forget that we ought to be healers – healers of conflicts. Doctors, in spite of astronomical medical costs, still retain a high degree of public confidence because they are perceived as healers. Should lawyers not be healers? Healers, not warriors? Healers, not procurers? Healers, not hired guns?”
– US Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, The State of Justice, A.B.A.J., Apr. 1984, at 62, 66.
We at Ollin Law choose to be healers. As such, we are committed to what we call Healing Law, or the practice of helping clients and communities heal collectively from the suffering caused by long standing injustices and continued mass incarceration. Healing Law honors and embraces the indigenous practices of compassion, hope, and interconnectedness.
Compassion
Our mentor Father Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, asks that we seek “a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.” We do our legal work in awe, and not judgment, of the people we represent.
Hope
Hope can move individuals and communities to become more harmonious and honor all members of our society. We aim to nurture such hope, especially for incarcerated people, through our legal work and victories so that people can discover their individual genius and gifts.
Interconnected
People are connected to relatives, ancestors, future descendants, the communities they live in, and the land they live on. We do our legal work with the understanding that our efforts reverberate through these connections and that our clients should not be denied the right to live interconnected and purposeful lives.
As part of our Healing Law practice, we do the following:
- Lead Healing Law training sessions for those in the legal profession
- Present on Healing Law at conferences
- Facilitate self-care practices like healing circles and sweat lodges