Many prospective law students are using the law to assist workers in a wide variety of settings. As undergraduates, they only have had hopes of careers in organized labor or, after graduation, may have been involved with immigrant and contingent workers. Such people see a legal education as a way of enhancing the work to which they are already committed; they find, however, that most law schools offer only traditional labor and employment courses that do not meet their needs nor engage their deepest aspirations.

WELP seeks to respond to train and empower people who want to be engaged with workers-unionized and non-unionized, public sector, and within the global economy. Designed by faculty members with practical and theoretical expertise, WELP draws upon leading labor-employment law practitioners in the metropolitan area, and labor scholars and historians in the larger University. A key aspect of the program is outreach work to the labor community, a prime example of which was WELP's co-sponsorship, with the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), the New York City Labor Council, and others, of a day-long, first-ever conference on health issues of immigrant workers held in April, 2002.

In addition to basic National Labor Relations Board and Employment Discrimination courses, the curriculum examines the changing nature of the employment relationship and the interlocking regulations designed to assure minimal health and safety protocols at the worksite. WELP has developed new, worker-centered courses like Rights of Low Wage Workers, Workplace Health and Safety, and fourth-semester lawyering seminars in Arbitration and in Title VII litigation. Internships and externships are provided to prepare graduates for practice in a broad range of labor-related employment settings. In addition, as part of our commitment to training lawyers for community-based practices, the curriculum includes issues that frequently concern clients in these practices: wage and hours law, unemployment compensation, pension and ERISA rights, OSHA, plant-closing legislation, and workers' compensation.

Faculty members participating in WELP include:

• Sameer M. Ashar teaches in the Immigrant and Refugee Rights Clinic. A board member of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, he is the author of law review articles on immigration and on affirmative action, and taught at Harvard's Program on Negotiations, the NYU Immigrant Rights Clinic, and most recently, at the University of Maryland School of Law's Civil Rights Clinic.
• Beryl Blaustone is a former labor lawyer with the American Federation of Government Employees and Commissioner for the D.C. Commission on Human Rights. A professional mediator for more than 20 years, she teaches mediation techniques to resolve workplace conflicts involving employment discrimination, workplace disagreements, and labor/management disputes.
• John Cicero , a former Supervising Attorney and Trial Specialist with the National Labor Relations Board, whose innovative teaching techniques are described in his Vermont Labor Law Review article, "The Classroom as Shop Floor: Images of Work and the Student of Labor Law."
• Shirley Lung is a former Executive Director of the Center for Immigrants' Rights, the first organization in New York to create a hotline to assist workers facing discrimination and job exploitation due to immigration laws. A member of the Board of Directors of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, she has worked on labor issues affecting Chinese garment, restaurant, and construction workers in New York City through participation in several independent workers' centers.
• Merrick Rossein , whose three-volume treatise, Employment Discrimination Law and Litigation, is used by practicing attorneys and the courts. The former Director of Training at the National Employment Law Project, he served as a member of the Governor's Sexual Harassment Task Force and drafted an affirmative action plan as a Commissioner of New York City's Equal Employment Practices Commission. He is a longtime employment discrimination litigator, and brought one of the first "hostile environment" cases.