Davida Finger

Davida Finger has taught the community justice section of the law clinic, the externship course, and the law & poverty course. She and her students represent on cases, such as landlord-tenant, post-disaster housing, housing discrimination, and on other civil rights matters. In addition to litigating cases, Dean Finger strives to provide support and collaboration on community advocacy for anti-poverty and justice initiatives. Dean Finger serves as the René August and Mary Jane Pastorek Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law. She also serves as Director of the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center.

The U.S. State Department has named Dean Finger a Fulbright Specialist, an honor that will allow her to continue to teach at the College of Law while being available as a specialist to Fulbright institutions through 2026.   

Dean Finger served as the 2018-20 co-president of the Society of American Law Teachers, a national organization that works to expand the power of law to under-served communities. She has served on the SALT Board of Governors since 2014 and has played a leadership role on issues related to diversity in legal education. She also serves on the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) Board of Directors.

Dean Finger frequently presents on topics related to clinical education and is engaged with the national clinical community through scholarship and service. In 2016, she was awarded the Bellow Scholars fellowship by the Association of American Law Schools (AALS)' Section on Clinical Legal Education’s Committee on Lawyering in the Public for her empirical research designed to improve the quality of justice in communities.

Dean Finger's empirical research on housing justice presented the first comprehensive look at the eviction crisis in New Orleans. In 2020, CLEA named her co-editor of the Best Practices blog, which grew out of its best practices committee and serves as an information hub on current reforms in legal education. Dean Finger has served on the planning team for the Southern Clinical Conference for the last decade.

Dean Finger was the founding director of the College of Law’s Incubator Program for solo practitioners working for social justice. She also founded the Education Project to represent low-income families on special education matters.  

Dean Finger served as the 2011-12 chair of the AALS Poverty Law section. Prior to joining the clinical faculty at Loyola, she practiced law in Seattle.

While in law school, Dean Finger was the founding Editor in Chief of the Seattle Journal for Social Justice and an Associate Editor on the Seattle University Law Review. At graduation, she received the Faculty Scholar Award for excellence in high academic achievement and substantial service to the law school community. In 2007, Seattle University Law School named her an inspiring alum. 

Her scholarship interests include poverty law, clinical education, community lawyering, access to justice, delivery of legal services, housing, and post-disaster government accountability.