H. Marissa Montes is the Director and Co-Founder of LIJC. She built LIJC while in law
school in response to an unmet need for free immigration legal services on the Eastside
of Los Angeles. She was then jointly awarded Loyola’s Public Interest Fellowship, to
establish the clinic and develop its immigration-lawyering curriculum for law students. In
addition to the clinic, Marissa teaches courses in regard to Cross-Cultural Competency
and Trauma-Informed Lawyering, as well as spearheaded Loyola’s Immigration Law
and Border Practicum, which includes an alternative spring break trip to El Paso, TX.
Marissa serves as a visiting professor at the ITESO in Guadalajara, Mexico, where she
teaches U.S. asylum law and serves migrant shelters. Marissa has been recognized as
a Top Young Lawyer by the ABA (2017) and HNBA (2019). She serves on the California
Department of Justice, Calgang Database Technical Advisory Committee, and was
appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti to serve on the inaugural Los Angeles Commission on
Civil and Human Rights. She received her B.A. in International Relations and Spanish
from the University of Southern California and her J.D. from Loyola in 2012.