The Homeless Advocacy Clinic at University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law—the first in the country to provide legal services exclusively to formerly incarcerated people experiencing homelessness—is getting substantial support to further its work.

Sacramento-native Robert A. Buccola ’83, and his wife, Dr. Kawanaa Carter, have committed $3 million to establish the Buccola Family Homeless Advocacy Clinic Endowment. Buccola is a managing and founding partner of Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood Campora, LLP.

“Having a program like this that provides these otherwise powerless people with access to available benefits is critical to improving the welfare of the most marginalized members of our society,” Buccola said. “Donating money is probably the easiest thing. The hard work is rolling your sleeves up and helping people. It's really wonderful to know the law school that I graduated from is putting energy out in this less than glamorous area.”

For Carter, a neurosurgeon in Sacramento, the gift aligns with her values of caring for people.

“Not having a place to live and helping to remedy that condition is the first step in taking care of a person and is necessary to address one’s overall sense of well-being and state of health,” Carter said. “I believe in caring for people from a holistic point of view and access to these basic needs, like reasonable shelter, is essential to assuring that the unhoused are treated with humanity.”

Established in 2021, the Homeless Advocacy Clinic has had a significant impact in the community. In 2023, students working in the clinic played a critical role in saving unhoused and other low-income people across Sacramento more than $162 million in court fines and fees.

Michael Hunter Schwartz, dean of McGeorge School of Law said he deeply appreciates Buccola and Carter’s generous contributions. “Their support empowers students to grow their lawyering skills while simultaneously making a meaningful impact on our community,” Schwartz said.

The experience also trains students to be effective advocates for their clients. Through the clinic, students learn fundamental lawyering skills while providing barrier-free, holistic, and client-centered legal services to unhoused residents of Sacramento County.

“My internship at the clinic gave me invaluable experience and insight into holistic lawyering—that is, a lawyering approach that doesn’t just look at the client’s legal issues but how their legal issues came to be,” said Maya Alexandria ’25, who worked in the clinic over the summer.

“Thousands of dollars in fines? Those charges accumulated while my client was unhoused and unemployed,” she explained. “The ability to help my clients get back on their feet and break through the vicious cycle makes every second I’m in the clinic meaningful and impactful.”

“The work our students are doing has a tremendous impact,” said President Christopher Callahan. “I am extremely grateful Robert and Kawanaa see the value our clinic provides and are supporting it with this gift. Their generosity will create tremendous opportunities to further its work, which is leading to significant, positive changes in our community.”

Professor Ron Hochbaum, associate clinical professor of law at McGeorge and a national expert on homelessness and poverty law, directs the Homeless Advocacy Clinic.

“This generous gift ensures that McGeorge and its students will be part of the solution by providing critical legal services to remove barriers to housing for some of Sacramento’s most marginalized residents,” Hochbaum said.

McGeorge School of Law’s legal clinics have been providing free services to people in the Sacramento community since 1964. Four of the clinics operate on campus and are collectively known as Community Legal Services. Under the supervision of faculty, students work with clients in the areas of bankruptcy, elder and health law, homeless advocacy and immigration law. Three off-campus clinics give students the opportunity to work in federal courts, prisons and the California State Legislature—the Federal Defender Clinic, the Prisoner Civil Rights Mediation Clinic and the Legislative and Public Policy Clinic.