Claire Johnson Raba
@claireraba.bsky.social
Law prof @UICLaw. Civ Pro, access to justice, consumer law, state courts, big data, A2J & legal tech. Former consumer rights legal aid attorney & EJW fellow. Researcher at the Debt Collection Lab. Motorcycle rider (🏍️ & 🏞️).
Reposted by Claire Johnson Raba
Pay to Plead, @claireraba.bsky.social and my article on California debt collection is available! Drawing on more than $2M debt collection cases covering 80% of CA's population from 2009-2020, we draw a detailed picture of how mass debt lawsuits operate as a regressive system of wealth transfer. 1/3
Pay to Plead: Finding Unfairness and Abusive Practices in California Debt Collection Cases
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In this Article, we report on one of the largest in-depth studies of debt collection lawsuits ever attempted. We collect, normalize, and analyze a data s
papers.ssrn.com
October 28, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Pay to Plead, @claireraba.bsky.social and my article on California debt collection is available! Drawing on more than $2M debt collection cases covering 80% of CA's population from 2009-2020, we draw a detailed picture of how mass debt lawsuits operate as a regressive system of wealth transfer. 1/3
Reposted by Claire Johnson Raba
Law students and recent grads! Thinking about clerking? Don’t overlook state courts. State Court Report has a new resource w/ info and deadlines for 95 state supreme court justices. Check it out! @statecourtreport.bsky.social
statecourtreport.org/state-judici...
statecourtreport.org/state-judici...
State Judicial Clerkship Resource
statecourtreport.org
May 13, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Law students and recent grads! Thinking about clerking? Don’t overlook state courts. State Court Report has a new resource w/ info and deadlines for 95 state supreme court justices. Check it out! @statecourtreport.bsky.social
statecourtreport.org/state-judici...
statecourtreport.org/state-judici...
Reposted by Claire Johnson Raba
Periodic reminder that Justice Roberts and Co. blocked student debt relief for millions because of a single loan servicer that may or may not have been at risk of losing money if the program were implemented. No one was worried about nationwide injunctions then. #SCOTUS.
May 15, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Periodic reminder that Justice Roberts and Co. blocked student debt relief for millions because of a single loan servicer that may or may not have been at risk of losing money if the program were implemented. No one was worried about nationwide injunctions then. #SCOTUS.
Thanks @pelfreyduryea.bsky.social for organizing our #AALSClinical2025 panel on legal needs assessments and how data collection and analysis help law school clinics better serve clients, students, & community!
Ok, today at #AALSClinical2026 I’m forgetting to take pictures. But I did remember to ask someone to take a picture of my awesome panel partners and me! Thank you, @claireraba.bsky.social (Univ. Illinois-Chicago) & @boydlawunlv.bsky.social’s Lydia Nussbaum! #legalneedsassessment
April 28, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Thanks @pelfreyduryea.bsky.social for organizing our #AALSClinical2025 panel on legal needs assessments and how data collection and analysis help law school clinics better serve clients, students, & community!
Reposted by Claire Johnson Raba
NEW: In agency after agency, the U.S. government is losing its capacity to measure how American society is functioning, making it much harder to gauge the nature and scale of the problems we are facing and the effectiveness of policies.
By @alecmac.bsky.social
By @alecmac.bsky.social
Trump’s War on Measurement Means Losing Data on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change and More
By slashing teams that gather critical data, the administration has left the federal government with no way of understanding if policies are working — and created a black hole of information whose con...
www.propublica.org
April 18, 2025 at 12:50 PM
NEW: In agency after agency, the U.S. government is losing its capacity to measure how American society is functioning, making it much harder to gauge the nature and scale of the problems we are facing and the effectiveness of policies.
By @alecmac.bsky.social
By @alecmac.bsky.social
I have a new paper forthcoming in the Journal of Law in Society on students as co-researchers in the direct representation law school clinic. Clinics are where students learn the practice of law, and also where they learn how to study and critique the system of law. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Student Scholars: Access-to-Justice Research in the Law School Direct Representation Clinic
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Understanding the needs of local communities is critical for addressing barriers to civil justice, and solving access-to-justice problems in state courts requir
papers.ssrn.com
March 30, 2025 at 6:46 PM
I have a new paper forthcoming in the Journal of Law in Society on students as co-researchers in the direct representation law school clinic. Clinics are where students learn the practice of law, and also where they learn how to study and critique the system of law. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Reposted by Claire Johnson Raba
This is what Reagan did with his "welfare queen" rhetoric. And it created enough public hostility toward welfare recipients that even Democrats embraced an anti-welfare agenda and revamped the program to punish families rather than supporting them in a time of need.
Don't let that happen again.
Don't let that happen again.
BREAKING: Trump's billionaire Commerce Secretary says that seniors won't care if they don't get their Social Security checks — and that anyone who does complain is a fraudster.
March 22, 2025 at 1:29 PM
This is what Reagan did with his "welfare queen" rhetoric. And it created enough public hostility toward welfare recipients that even Democrats embraced an anti-welfare agenda and revamped the program to punish families rather than supporting them in a time of need.
Don't let that happen again.
Don't let that happen again.
And today in Civ Pro I and #teachthecrisis, in concluding the unit on venue, we talked about the Mahmoud Khalil detention and transfer and learned a bit about habeas law. Students really appreciated the chance to talk. theintercept.com/2025/03/14/m...
Why Trump Is So Desperate to Keep Mahmoud Khalil in Louisiana
Government lawyers would be happy to avoid a legal precedent set in the case of Ravi Ragbir during the first Trump administration.
theintercept.com
March 18, 2025 at 8:27 PM
And today in Civ Pro I and #teachthecrisis, in concluding the unit on venue, we talked about the Mahmoud Khalil detention and transfer and learned a bit about habeas law. Students really appreciated the chance to talk. theintercept.com/2025/03/14/m...
This is going cause severe harm (no payee means disruptions to housing, meds, etc.) to really vulnerable disabled people who live on very little needs-based SSI income. Yet again, the cruelty is the point.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) is reportedly going to stop allowing people without Social Security numbers (SSNs) to serve as "representative payees" for beneficiaries who need help managing their benefits.
This risks benefit interruption for thousands.
www.govexec.com/management/2...
This risks benefit interruption for thousands.
www.govexec.com/management/2...
SSA weighs axing payments to 170,000 beneficiaries
The move to cease making payments to people without Social Security numbers would imperil the benefits of thousands of immigrants’ children with disabilities.
www.govexec.com
March 14, 2025 at 1:29 PM
This is going cause severe harm (no payee means disruptions to housing, meds, etc.) to really vulnerable disabled people who live on very little needs-based SSI income. Yet again, the cruelty is the point.
Reposted by Claire Johnson Raba
Trump and Musk have fired Tara Twomey, the ED of the U.S. Trustee's Office, which serves as bankruptcy's "watchdog." You don't have to agree with every position that the Office took to be alarmed at the politicization of the Executive Branch. Here's a write-up by my colleague Bob Lawless:
Making the Bankruptcy System Less Great - Credit Slips
News reports this morning are confirming the rumors that went around the bankruptcy community last night. The Trump Administration has fired Tara Twomey as executive director of the Office of U.S. Tru...
www.creditslips.org
March 10, 2025 at 11:24 PM
Trump and Musk have fired Tara Twomey, the ED of the U.S. Trustee's Office, which serves as bankruptcy's "watchdog." You don't have to agree with every position that the Office took to be alarmed at the politicization of the Executive Branch. Here's a write-up by my colleague Bob Lawless:
Students in my Civ Pro I class were struggling w/ fed question and the concept of private rights of action so we reviewed CREW v. DOGE and other cplts on the @justsecurity.org compilation of cases v. the Trump admin. A reminder we can #teachthecrisis in all our classes.
March 6, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Students in my Civ Pro I class were struggling w/ fed question and the concept of private rights of action so we reviewed CREW v. DOGE and other cplts on the @justsecurity.org compilation of cases v. the Trump admin. A reminder we can #teachthecrisis in all our classes.
Halfway through the semester in my @uiclaw #A2J and #LegalTech class! My students and I were lucky to have @abfresearch.bsky.social Director of Research for A2J Matthew Burnett join us to discuss legal profession regulatory reform and UPL challenges. Community-led legaltech design ftw👏👏👏
March 3, 2025 at 10:58 PM
Halfway through the semester in my @uiclaw #A2J and #LegalTech class! My students and I were lucky to have @abfresearch.bsky.social Director of Research for A2J Matthew Burnett join us to discuss legal profession regulatory reform and UPL challenges. Community-led legaltech design ftw👏👏👏
#caturday morning research assistant #learningfromstrangers
March 1, 2025 at 6:45 PM
#caturday morning research assistant #learningfromstrangers
Reposted by Claire Johnson Raba
Keep your eye on the ball:
The real reason for this is that the Trump administration wants to get rid of disparate-impact liability under federal civil rights laws for states and entities required to provide language access to people with limited English proficiency.
Think hospitals, courts, etc.
The real reason for this is that the Trump administration wants to get rid of disparate-impact liability under federal civil rights laws for states and entities required to provide language access to people with limited English proficiency.
Think hospitals, courts, etc.
“In its nearly 250-year history, the U.S. has never had a national language at the federal level. Hundreds of languages are spoken in the U.S., the byproduct of the country’s long history of taking in immigrants from around the world.”
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
Exclusive | Trump to Sign Executive Order Making English Official U.S. Language
The U.S. has never had a national language in its nearly 250-year history.
www.wsj.com
February 28, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Keep your eye on the ball:
The real reason for this is that the Trump administration wants to get rid of disparate-impact liability under federal civil rights laws for states and entities required to provide language access to people with limited English proficiency.
Think hospitals, courts, etc.
The real reason for this is that the Trump administration wants to get rid of disparate-impact liability under federal civil rights laws for states and entities required to provide language access to people with limited English proficiency.
Think hospitals, courts, etc.
Nice vote by mail system you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.
February 21, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Nice vote by mail system you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.
Reposted by Claire Johnson Raba
FANTASTIC
ICPSR at U Mich is coordinating the archiving of at-risk federal data (all of it?)
You can upload data you have & search for data you don’t have
www.datalumos.org/datalumos/
ICPSR at U Mich is coordinating the archiving of at-risk federal data (all of it?)
You can upload data you have & search for data you don’t have
www.datalumos.org/datalumos/
February 14, 2025 at 4:52 PM
FANTASTIC
ICPSR at U Mich is coordinating the archiving of at-risk federal data (all of it?)
You can upload data you have & search for data you don’t have
www.datalumos.org/datalumos/
ICPSR at U Mich is coordinating the archiving of at-risk federal data (all of it?)
You can upload data you have & search for data you don’t have
www.datalumos.org/datalumos/
Reposted by Claire Johnson Raba
This is not good.
CFPB's former chief technologist issues an urgent warning to the court that several years' worth of sensitive data is about to be destroyed, with damaging consequences
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
February 14, 2025 at 5:46 PM
This is not good.
Taught Lassiter (& Mathews/Goldberg) & procedural due process in Civ Pro I today and talked about Hamdan and Hamdi and the ACLU case filed yesterday on behalf of Venezuelan Guantanamo detainees. We need to keep talking about *all of this* with our law school classes, not just the Con Law profs.
February 14, 2025 at 12:51 AM
Taught Lassiter (& Mathews/Goldberg) & procedural due process in Civ Pro I today and talked about Hamdan and Hamdi and the ACLU case filed yesterday on behalf of Venezuelan Guantanamo detainees. We need to keep talking about *all of this* with our law school classes, not just the Con Law profs.
Reposted by Claire Johnson Raba
NIH IN YOUR STATE
“Select a state on the map to see the impact of NIH funding across America”
www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-...
“Select a state on the map to see the impact of NIH funding across America”
www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-...
NIH In Your State - United For Medical Research
Select a state on the map to see the impact of NIH funding across America.
www.unitedformedicalresearch.org
February 8, 2025 at 8:33 PM
NIH IN YOUR STATE
“Select a state on the map to see the impact of NIH funding across America”
www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-...
“Select a state on the map to see the impact of NIH funding across America”
www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-...
💯 Fellowships are a key way to support new lawyers who want to go into public interest law. And public interest/impact lit orgs should recruit broadly to include fellowship candidates from state law schools. No need to create a new program - firms can fund #EqualJusticeWorks fellowships!
One thing rich law schools, firms, foundations, etc., can do is recognize there are a lot of brilliant lawyers—newly minted & otherwise—who are currently or soon will be out of a job, & a lot of orgs who could use the help but don't have the funds or capacity to add staff rn. Create fellowships!
Public Citizen Litigation Group, State Democracy Defenders Fund, ACLU, CREW, Democracy Forward, Protect Democracy, National Security Counselors, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.... to name just a very few of the many groups and law firms
www.justsecurity.org/107087/track...
www.justsecurity.org/107087/track...
February 5, 2025 at 5:45 PM
💯 Fellowships are a key way to support new lawyers who want to go into public interest law. And public interest/impact lit orgs should recruit broadly to include fellowship candidates from state law schools. No need to create a new program - firms can fund #EqualJusticeWorks fellowships!
Reposted by Claire Johnson Raba
The NYT asked me to write an op-ed on Musk and the Treasury and then took a pass. I hope it will still get read.
Personal Discretion Over the Treasury's Payments System Means the End of Democracy
If the Court and federal workers fail to stop Elon Musk, we are heading for authoritarianism.
www.liberalcurrents.com
February 4, 2025 at 8:48 PM
The NYT asked me to write an op-ed on Musk and the Treasury and then took a pass. I hope it will still get read.
So I teach Civ Pro and I'm going to share this, along with the brief filed here in Illinois by Organized Communities Against Deportation v. ICE, in class today. A little info on PIs and TROs & a little more on community organizing and impact litigation.
Per @democracyforward.bsky.social, the first lawsuit against the OMB funding freeze has been filed.
Plaintiffs are the National Council of Nonprofits, American Public Health Association, Main Street Alliance, and SAGE:
Plaintiffs are the National Council of Nonprofits, American Public Health Association, Main Street Alliance, and SAGE:
democracyforward.org
January 28, 2025 at 5:58 PM
So I teach Civ Pro and I'm going to share this, along with the brief filed here in Illinois by Organized Communities Against Deportation v. ICE, in class today. A little info on PIs and TROs & a little more on community organizing and impact litigation.
My @uiclaw A2J & LegalTech students came prepared with great questions for our guest speaker @theaugmentedlawyer.bsky.social. We talked RAGs, prompt engineering, UPL, and the role of lawyers in LegalTech & we are only on week 2 of class! It's going to be a great semester.
January 27, 2025 at 6:35 PM
My @uiclaw A2J & LegalTech students came prepared with great questions for our guest speaker @theaugmentedlawyer.bsky.social. We talked RAGs, prompt engineering, UPL, and the role of lawyers in LegalTech & we are only on week 2 of class! It's going to be a great semester.
Reposted by Claire Johnson Raba
Don't give up - do something. A great list for civic minded Americans, from @protectdemocracy.org
open.substack.com/pub/protectd...
open.substack.com/pub/protectd...
How *you* can protect democracy
29 concrete actions you can take right now to protect our system of government
open.substack.com
January 24, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Don't give up - do something. A great list for civic minded Americans, from @protectdemocracy.org
open.substack.com/pub/protectd...
open.substack.com/pub/protectd...
Working on plans w/ #EqualJusticeWorks for a mentorship program for fellows and alumni. EJW funds post-law school fellowships in public interest law & mentorship will provide ongoing support for folks as they navigate careers, including paths to academia and non-profit leadership. #EJW #AAC
December 11, 2024 at 6:46 PM
Working on plans w/ #EqualJusticeWorks for a mentorship program for fellows and alumni. EJW funds post-law school fellowships in public interest law & mentorship will provide ongoing support for folks as they navigate careers, including paths to academia and non-profit leadership. #EJW #AAC