3L and Kansas native Jessica Guardiola earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and history from the University of Kansas. Soon after she moved to Washington, D.C., and worked at a nonprofit providing legal services to undocumented minors in government detention. The experience made Guardiola realize she wanted to attend law school to continue to help undocumented people.
“I applied to a couple of different schools and then I came to Utah and toured the building. The person giving me the tour, Jessica Arthurs, was really friendly, and I got a good feeling about the school,” Guardiola recalls. “I also wanted to live in the Mountain West, and Salt Lake had awesome access to the mountains and skiing, hiking and camping. Heading to the outdoors and also studying seemed like a good balance and fit for me.”
Along with the mountain scenery, Guardiola likes the environment at Utah Law.
“Everyone is so friendly, cordial and collegial to each other and willing to help each other out. I don’t feel a lot of competitiveness between myself or my classmates. It’s a friendly, inviting atmosphere,” she says. “During my 1L year, I was in study groups with my classmates where we prepared for finals together and made outlines.”
Since the summer after her 1L year, Guardiola has completed several field placements through Utah Law’s experiential education program at Catholic Community Services of Utah, an organization that provides pro bono services to undocumented residents and to children in their refugee foster care program.
“I was able to work on cases of unaccompanied minors and with survivors of human labor trafficking. I got a lot of hands-on skills by meeting with clients, researching the issues in their cases, and drafting briefs. It will hopefully be one thing off of their plates and help them get legal status and stay in the U.S. permanently and legally,” Guardiola explains. “When I worked there last summer in their asylum seekers program, I gave legal orientation presentations about immigration law to community members on a walk-in basis once a week. This included explaining when they needed to go to court, what court was like, and an overview of the applications they could apply for and when they needed to apply. That was a really rewarding experience.”
Guardiola has also served as a student director for Utah Law’s Pro Bono Initiative for nearly two years, coordinating efforts at the immigration law sites and helping to answer clients’ immigration law questions about citizenship, status, deportation, and visas.
“I speak Spanish and feel there’s a huge need to provide legal services to Spanish-speaking people and get them the help they need. Spanish-speaking people and undocumented people are among the most vulnerable in the Salt Lake community,” she says. “In my experience, there’s not enough free or pro bono legal services to help everyone who needs the help.”
Her biggest passion within law is expanding access to justice, especially for those who are undocumented.
“The stakes for people in immigration court are really high because they could be faced with deportation back to their country of origin. They have the right to an attorney, but the government isn’t going to appoint them one—so a lot of people have to apply pro se (representing themselves),” Guardiola explains. “I want to help that community and increase their access to lawyers.”
After graduation this spring, Guardiola will be working at Wasatch Immigration Project in Park City, Utah, a nonprofit that provides pro bono legal services to immigrants in the Wasatch Back and its surrounding areas.
“I want to represent undocumented people in court and also help them apply for their asylum applications through the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the federal agency that deals with visas,” she says. “I am passionate about providing vulnerable populations with legal help and assisting them with the complicated legal process.”