Sam Heppell joined Chicago civil rights law firm Loevy & Loevy in September 2015. His clients include the wrongfully convicted, victims of police brutality and sexual assault, and prisoners denied access to adequate medical care.
Sam graduated from Harvard Law School in 2014, where he represented dozens of low-income clients as a student attorney at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau—the nation’s oldest student-run legal services organization. He defended tenants against unjust evictions and helped disabled and unemployed community members obtain vital public benefits. He also served as co-coordinator of the Foreclosure Task Force, protecting residents from post-foreclosure displacement as part of a community lawyering partnership with a Boston housing and tenants’ rights organization, City Life/Vida Urbana (CLVU). In this role, Sam helped run legal advice clinics at CLVU community meetings, and represented CLVU members in their eviction cases in Boston Housing Court.
Before law school, Sam worked as a union organizer and then as a legislative assistant in Canada’s Parliament, where he focused on issues related to police accountability and prison policy.