About Us

University of Washington Student Legal Services is an on-campus law office that provides confidential legal advice and representation to currently enrolled UW-Seattle, UW-Tacoma, and UW-Bothell degree-seeking students: undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.

UW Student Legal Services came into existence in 1969 as the UW Legal Aid Society. During this time of social unrest on American campuses, UW law student volunteers advised students on their legal issues. Many SLS programs around the U.S. began in the same era.

We are proud to work with and for all UW-Seattle, Tacoma, and Bothell undergraduate, graduate, and professional students regardless of race, ethnicity, age, religion, (dis)abilities, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, or citizenship status.

Our Mission

The mission of Student Legal Services is to help students resolve legal problems that may adversely affect their emotional well-being and interfere with their ability to focus on their academic objectives.

Vision

We envision a campus where Student Legal Services engages with community partners to ensure barriers to justice have been overcome.

What We Do

We offer free and confidential 40-minute consultations, services and court representation in select areas of law that student encounter most often and for which it would be difficult to obtain low-cost legal representation.

Student Legal Services seeks to educate students about their legal rights and responsibilities and their practical implications, both individually and through legal educational programs and community presentations.

Our Approach

Student Legal Services (SLS) takes a comprehensive approach to assisting UW-Seattle, UW Tacoma, and UW-Bothell students with their legal concerns. Exploring these concerns in-depth allows us to better inform the client about his or her legal rights and responsibilities and their practical implications.

Legal issues — pending divorce or relationship breakup, a dispute with a landlord or roommate, getting turned down for an apartment or job due to bad credit, a citation from the police, etc. — often contain underlying, non-legal concerns such as emotional distress or financial worries.  Like an iceberg, one aspect of the issue is easily seen. The submerged part, though not visible, is equally as important.

In seeking to protect their legal, financial, and emotional health, our goal is to make it easier for students to focus on their academic objectives.

Student Legal Services has been alleviating legal and non-legal problems since the late 1960s, doing our part to help the University of Washington achieve its impressive academic retention rate of 92%.