Jen Story joins Campbell Law’s Richardson Family Education Equity Clinic

July 25, 2024

RALEIGH - Campbell Law School welcomed Jen Story as a supervising staff attorney effective July 22, 2024, Dean J. Rich Leonard has announced.

Story serves in the Richardson Family Education Equity Clinic, where she works with Clinic Director Lisa Lukasik.

Story most recently served as managing attorney for the Right To Education Project (REP) of Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) in Durham. The program is a statewide education justice project that advocates for the individual rights of students in the public school system and fights to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. In her former role, Story handled individual cases in all areas of LANC education practices, and managed the education work within REP and across the state.

"Jen's commitment to North Carolina youth and education advocacy and her work with LANC's Right To Education Project made her the prime candidate for this new role at the law school," Leonard explained.

Since moving to North Carolina in 2005, Story has focused solely on youth and education advocacy, first as the Juvenile Court/School Liaison for Judicial District 15B, then as a Guardian ad Litem, and, since 2012, as an education justice attorney fighting for equity within North Carolina education and juvenile justice systems.

"Prior to law school, I worked for a number of years with youth in Orange County, Chatham County and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools who were already court-involved," Story was quoted in a recent NCBA article. "While I loved working with the youth and the other stakeholders I got to meet, I wanted to do more to keep youth out of the juvenile system in the first place.

"Most of the students I worked with had been struggling in school for years - often without any therapeutic interventions - before things spiraled into an incident triggering court involvement. It was frustrating to me that interventions only started after court involvement had been initiated, and so I wanted to try to work more on the proactive side of things to keep kids out of the Juvenile Court system period. That took me to law school and from there I went directly to Legal Aid, where I have been doing education justice work as an attorney since 2012."

Story is a regular presenter in community and professional forums, has guest-lectured at area law schools and schools of social work, and has had a book chapter on students' First Amendment rights published in the Guide to Student Advocacy in North Carolina.

She holds a law degree from the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Law and a psychology degree from Rhodes College in Memphis.

Story has two daughters who are students in Durham Public Schools. In her free time, she loves spending time hiking, swimming or paddling in local rivers and lakes, or working on art, baking, or music projects with her husband and daughters.

In February 2024, the NCBA Juvenile Justice & Children's Rights Section presented the Children's Champion Award to Story during a meeting of the section council at the N.C. Bar Center.

Story, who served as chair of the section in 2018-19 and co-chair of the section's racial justice subcommittee for five years, was nominated by LaToya Powell, who presented the award and is herself a former recipient and section chair, according to the NCBA article.

"When I think of a 'true champion' for North Carolina's youth," Powell stated, "Jen Story is one of the first names that comes to mind. Her entire professional career has been dedicated to child advocacy, focusing primarily on youth from underserved communities, including low-income and minority communities."

The Richardson Family Education Equity Cliniclaunched in January 2024. Billy Richardson, class of 1980 Campbell Law graduate and a Fayetteville attorney who served in the North Carolina Legislature for more than a decade, and Barbara Richardson, have given the law school a generous gift to support the addition of a sixth pro bono clinic focusing on protection of the educational rights of children with disabilities.

Professor Lukasik is the inaugural director of the clinic, which provides free legal representation to low-income, at-risk children with disabilities who are seeking to restore and protect their educational rights in public schools.

"We believe this work is important," she said. "We believe that we can provide good service and support for the families that we serve. And we are inspired by the legacy of the Richardson family to do good service in the public interest. We also hope to provide meaningful and impactful opportunities for students to get legal skills but also to develop habits of pro bono service."

Dean J. Rich Leonard said the need for this clinic is enormous.

"We are already being besieged by folks needing our help," he said. "We are moving in the direction of needing to offer more experiential legal education."

Lukasik added, "Jen brings unparalleled dedication to education justice and to advocacy on behalf of children; we are honored and excited that she chose to bring her talent and compassion to Campbell Law's Richardson Family Education Equity Clinic."

ABOUT CAMPBELL LAW

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