TrainingS + Workshops

UnCommon Law trains attorneys, social workers, therapists, law students, interns, and other counselors about the California parole process and how to prepare for it. By training others in UCL’s methods and approach, we are enabling our unique model of parole representation to be accessed by many more people.

UCL also conducts group workshops inside, during which UCL guides groups of up to two hundred or more people at a time through the steps necessary to become parole ready. Through this approach, UCL provides a comprehensive overview of the parole hearing process, the applicable legal framework, inside programming, and the need to reflect on insight, remorse, responsibility, relapse prevention, and reentry.

In these workshops, UCL uses a combination of teaching methods including presentation, personal narrative sharing, small group discussion, mock hearings, and Q & A sessions. UCL collaborates with partner agencies and resources, bringing in various presenters depending on prison or workshop location.

Leadership

UnCommon Law trains formerly incarcerated people, including UCL alumni, to become Parole Success Advocates. Our Parole Success Advocates provide individual support to people inside, facilitate groups, speak at events, advocate for legislative change, and write and share their stories. We train and support Parole Success Advocates with the tools needed to go on to become trainers, leaders, public speakers, and managers. We provide access to training in facilitation, public speaking, policy advocacy, counseling, and leadership. UCL supports our Parole Success Advocates to achieve their educational and vocational goals, through counseling certificates, law school, mentor training, drug and alcohol counseling training, and/or somatic healing training. The current movement toward healing and empowerment for people who have been caught in systems of incarceration and oppression needs to be led by people with lived experience, and this is how UCL is creating a pathway to ensure that happens.