May 05, 2025 

Letter from the Director

The Coelho Center has had some exciting updates in the past year, including moving to our newly renovated offices at LMU’s Westchester campus, onboarding two new Assistant Directors, hosting Loyola Marymount University’s (“LMU”) first Disability Studies Conference, and continuing our policy and advocacy efforts, including the submission of an amicus brief for A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, a case currently being decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Coelho Center will also be hosting a conference titled “Disability and Immigration: Building Partnerships for a Just Future” which will take place June 26-27th at LMU.

The Coelho Center reaffirms the principles that reflect our core identity and that serve as a guide and touchstone for our work and relationships, including:

We are currently witnessing massive policy changes, including the dismantling of federal agencies and proposed budgets that reduce or eliminate critical programs. These actions will have a devastating impact on the disability community. The Coelho Center remains committed to our policy and advocacy efforts to advance the rights of people with disabilities.  We have joined our colleagues in opposition efforts and encourage others to join and continue to fight with and for the disability community! Below are information and links to join some of these advocacy efforts.

Disability rights advocates and attorneys are needed more now than ever to ensure that our disability laws and protections are enforced and that we are protecting the most vulnerable in our community. Central to the work of The Coelho Center is ensuring that we are creating a strong pathway for disabled people to attend law school and join the legal profession. 

With the generosity of foundational donors and supporters, including The Honorable Tony Coelho, our colleagues at Loyola Law School, and the disability rights community, we have built a one-of-a-kind pre-law program to increase representation of people with disabilities on the bar and bench. To date, the Coelho Law Fellowship has provided training and mentorship to 170 students from across the nation and internationally. We have equipped fellowship participants with skills for success on their pathways to law school and the legal profession while also developing a network of leaders committed to breaking down barriers and increasing access in our legal institutions.

Today, I write to you with urgency to help us in our efforts to sustain our programming by donating to and sharing our Coelho Law Fellowship Crowdfunding Campaign.  Our mission is to collaborate with the disability community to cultivate leadership and advocate for disability rights and justice through systemic change. This campaign will directly support Coelho Law Fellows from the 2025-2026 cohort and our alumni.  Our alumni include individuals like Nathaniel Ross and Ester Mendez who are featured below.

In Community,

Katherine Pérez, JD, PhD

The Coelho Law Fellowship gave me the community, validation, and resources I needed to succeed. I felt like I truly belonged in the legal profession when I met multiple lawyers who disclosed their disabilities to us through the fellowship. Today, I serve as a public defender, a role profoundly shaped by my own lived experiences as someone once criminalized while living with invisible disabilities. The criminal legal system disproportionately impacts the disability community, and it gets worse as more layers of marginalized identities are added to a person. However, with the right people involved in law and policy who understand the disability community, we have a louder voice.
To future fellows: Your story matters, and your leadership is needed!
To donors: Your support ensures that there will be more representation of the disability community in law and policy!

Growing up with physical disabilities, I had many people in my life, from healthcare professionals to educators, who tried to limit what I could accomplish or lower expectations on my capabilities. Despite this, I knew that all I needed was an opportunity to succeed. Programs like the Coelho Law Fellowship give students like me that opportunity. Although other programs exist to promote diversity in the legal profession, the Coelho Law Fellowship puts disability accessibility at the forefront, something truly special in the field of higher education. My time in the Coelho Law Fellowship instilled new skillsets and affirmed that law was the right path for me. Taking a law school crash course in disability law, reading cases, engaging in the Socratic method, and writing a legal research paper confirmed that law school was exactly where I wanted to be. Today, several years after my time as a fellow concluded, I still connect with classmates and the Coelho Center, proving to be an invaluable resource and network I am sure to rely on throughout my career. 

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass joined about 200 administrators, faculty, staff, and students at Loyola Marymount University on Oct. 16, 2024, to dedicate The Coelho Center for Disability Law, Policy, and Innovation’s new location on the Westchester campus. “I’m here to recognize a national hero,” said Bass of Tony Coelho ’64, a six-term congressman, principal author of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and founder of the center. Learn more.

This semester, the Center welcomed two new assistant directors who will help further advance the Center’s goals and advocacy. Sister Trish Doan received her Master’s in Theology at LMU and has returned to work on research at the intersection of disability and theology. Monique Lemus is an experienced higher education professional who will support the Center’s Law Fellowship Program. Learn more.

Now in its sixth year, over 170 participants have received programming that has led to positive educational and professional outcomes and fostered a network of future leaders in the law. The Coelho Law Fellowship aims to serve students with disabilities from community colleges, colleges, or universities (or recent graduates) with an interest in pursuing legal education. Learn more.

We need your support as we look forward to welcoming our seventh cohort of
Coelho Law Fellows! Our next class of fellows will be completely donor-funded, and therefore we rely on donations from individuals like you to maintain our program. Thank you for helping us reach our $35,000 goal to make the next cohort’s programming a reality! 

Click here to view our crowdfunding page.

Register now for our upcoming disability and immigration conference. Bringing together disability and immigration rights and justice leaders from across the nation to build partnerships and discuss advocacy, law and policy, service delivery and the future of our movements. A space for collaboration and discussion on crucial issues impacting disabled immigrants and refugees. 
Learn more.

On February 21, 2025, over 250 participants embraced the spirit of neighborly conversation, coming together to learn more about faculty and student research, to join interactive workshops, engage with local organizations and more. The conference, hosted by the Coelho Center for Disability Law, Policy, and Innovation, came at an exciting moment for disability studies at LMU. Learn more.

The Coelho Center joins other individuals and groups to submit Amicus Curiae (“Friend of the Court”) Briefs in disability rights and other civil rights cases where the court’s decision will have implications for the rights of people with disabilities. To read our brief on in support of petitioner in A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, a case that was just accepted for adjudication by the U.S. Supreme Court, click here. 

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