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The ILHPR aims to develop a generation of real estate and land use attorneys with expertise in community development, estate planning, and defending and enhancing property rights. The Initiative seeks to guide these students toward successful career paths that also help them use their legal skills to benefit disadvantaged communities with property-related challenges. The program is developing a recommended real estate curriculum and will encourage students to access the rich experiential learning opportunities ¾«¶«Ó°Òµ Law makes available to its students, including ones the Initiative is creating.

The ILHPR helps develop legislative and policy solutions at the local, state, and federal level to advance the property rights of disadvantaged communities. The program supports the ongoing legislative work of Professor Thomas Mitchell, lead author of the Ìýadopted by 23 states and other jurisdictions at this time, with several other states considering it, making it the most successful uniform real property act the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) has promulgated in the past 30 years. Professor Mitchell also developed a proposal the ULC approved for a second uniform act to help enable heirs’ property owners to escape the gridlock that has prevented many such owners from being able to better manage their properties and to use these properties for wealth-generating and other valuable purposes. That uniform act project is nearing final approval by the ULC. In Massachusetts and beyond, the ILHPR hopes to build support for community-informed legislative and municipal proposals to stabilize property rights in disadvantaged communities.

The ILHPR spurs theoretical and applied research into critical property issues affecting disadvantaged communities,Ìýsponsoring conferences, symposia, seminars, workshops, and other gatherings. Some of the research is mostly intended to advance the knowledge in property- and community development-related areas of the law. Other research is designed to help advance the development of legal reform and policy solutions to certain property-related issues various communities face. The Initiative embraces a law and society approach to property research by using and combining many methodologies. In addition to academics, many of these gatherings are open to other constituencies, including students, those in government, and the public. The program’s inaugural convening is the 2023Ìý.

The ILHPR seeks to promote the professional development of both attorneys and community practitioners by strengthening their expertise in estate planning, property-related matters, and community development on behalf of disadvantaged communities. In addition, the ILHPR seeks to engage with communities both to learn from them in order to inform the work of the Initiative and to be of service to them. That service includes sponsoring events such as community legal education programs designed to help community members better understand the laws that impact the property challenges they face.