Title
Honoring and commending Jennifer R. Clarke for her 15-year tenure as the Executive Director of the Public Interest Law Center and her strategic, pioneering, and transformative work to expand access to justice that has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people across Pennsylvania and the nation.
Body
WHEREAS, Throughout her career as a courageous, kind, and steadfast leader in the legal and public interest communities, Jennifer R. Clarke has been motivated by a deep commitment to creatively using the law to remedy systemic inequality and to improve the lives of her fellow citizens; and
WHEREAS, Clarke graduated from Columbia Law School in 1982 and entered private practice, first as an associate with White & Case and then at Dechert, Price and Rhodes, where she became a partner in 1991. While a partner at Dechert, Clarke served as a Trustee of the Women's Law Project, a not-for-profit law firm, and handled major pro bono matters, including a class action lawsuit in partnership with the Public Interest Law Center to secure delivery of medical and dental care to Medicaid-enrolled children in the State of Michigan; and
WHEREAS, In 2006, Clarke resigned from her partnership at Dechert and became the Executive Director of the Public Interest Law Center, a not-for-profit public interest law firm that uses high-impact legal strategies to advance the civil, social, and economic rights of communities in the Philadelphia region facing discrimination, inequality, and poverty. As Executive Director, Clarke was responsible for leading all aspects of the organization including strategic direction, legal quality, finances, administration and personnel; and
WHEREAS, After becoming the first woman Executive Director at the Law Center, Clarke pursued claims on behalf of children in Florida to enforce children's health care provisions of the Medicaid Act. There, the Law Center and co-counsel Boies, Schiller and Flexner LLP led the effort to secure compliance w...
Click here for full text