2025 CLEA Awards for Outstanding Clinical and Externship Students: Harvard’s Sarah Berton, Martha Ball, and Gabriel Eskandari

Each year, the Clinical Legal Education Association invites law schools to nominate students as their Outstanding Clinic Student or Team and Outstanding Externship student. This series includes submissions from law schools celebrating their outstanding students. 

From Harvard Law School  

CLEA Outstanding Clinic Team: Martha Ball and Gabriel Eskandari

Martha Ball ’25 and Gabriel Eskandari ’25 are honored as a team with the CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student Award for their significant contributions to the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic (HIRC). Ball and Eskandari — affectionately known in the clinic as “Gartha” — have served as a model of teamwork, enthusiasm, and dedication.

While the two students spent a collective total of nine semesters in HIRC over the fall, winter, and spring terms, they are recognized for their teamwork on one particularly intensive and challenging case they worked on throughout their third year at Harvard Law, representing an Iranian man seeking asylum in the United States. Little was straightforward about the case.  The client only spoke Farsi, was deeply traumatized by his experiences of torture in Iran and difficult journey to the United States, and suffered a prolonged detention.

Despite the complicating factors, Ball and Eskandari eagerly dove into their client’s case, spending countless hours traveling to his detention center in Plymouth, Mass., to meet with him, work with interpreters, finalize affidavits, and draft the legal brief. The pair quickly built a strong rapport with the client, remaining optimistic and compassionate throughout the case’s uphill battle. Ball skillfully drafted the brief, and Eskandari conducted a flawless direct examination with the client in his hearing before a judge.

Their diligent efforts paid off when their client was granted asylum and was quickly released from detention. Ball and Eskandari’s work did not stop with this victory. They immediately jumped into action to find him housing, clothes, food, and other necessities he would need to start his new life. The pair continue to work with the client to help him integrate into the Boston community, bringing him to church, food pantries, and Iranian New Year celebrations.

“Their collective effort was one of the best examples of teamwork any of us have witnessed during our years of supervising and mentoring students,” said the pair’s HIRC nominators. “They communicated flawlessly among themselves and worked together to zealously advocate for the client to ensure a positive outcome in the case.”

After graduation, both will continue their advocacy efforts together at Northeast Justice Center, where they will begin work as staff attorneys in units representing immigrants and other vulnerable communities in Massachusetts. For the two friends, this next step is a surreal moment of accomplishment.

“It has been my dream to work alongside asylum seekers at a community organization, and HIRC helped me achieve my dream,” said Eskandari.

“The clinic has trained and prepared me for the various legal strategies I will be using and has inspired me to find a position where I can do the work that I truly love,” added Ball. “I cannot wait to get started!”

CLEA Outstanding Externship Student: Sarah Berton: 

Sarah Berton ’25 received the 2025 CLEA Outstanding Clinical Externship Student Award for her important contributions to the Youth Advocacy and Policy Lab (Y-Lab) through the Child Advocacy Clinic and Education Law Clinic.

As a student in the Child Advocacy Clinic, Berton completed an externship with the impact litigation team at Public Counsel in Los Angeles, where she worked to remedy educational inequities in California and around the country. “I had the opportunity to contribute to all stages of the litigation process,” she said. “In addition to participating in active litigation cases, I witnessed the extensive thought and strategy that goes into exploring and initiating a lawsuit seeking systemic change, and I participated in the factual and legal research required to make such a lawsuit happen.”

Berton built on the foundation laid at Public Counsel by joining the Individual Representation Education Law Clinic the subsequent semester. There, she advocated on behalf of a Boston Public Schools student who had been struggling with learning disabilities and severe anxiety for years. Displaying outstanding compassion and skill, Berton worked tirelessly to build a trusting relationship with the client and his mother, advocate on his behalf at IEP meetings, and pore through thousands of pages of educational records to develop the theory of the case.

In her final semester during her third year at Harvard Law, Berton joined the Strategic Litigation Education Law Clinic, where she made outstanding contributions to amicus briefs, discovery strategy memos, and expert interviews. Berton also took the lead on organizing and implementing an online training session for Kentucky high school students, plaintiffs in the clinic’s lawsuit fighting for educational adequacy in the state, to prepare them for a public hearing on civic education. She facilitated the training, communicating complex legal information to the youth clients and designing activities to ensure they were fully prepared for the public hearing.

These clinical experiences culminated in Berton’s graduation from the Y-Lab Fellows Program, an intensive program for second- and third-year law students designed to combine clinics, courses, writing projects, and mentorship to prepare students for a career in youth advocacy. Her final writing project focused on the education of homeless youth.

Throughout her law school years, Berton has also been a leader in the Tenant Advocacy Project (TAP), a student practice organization that provides zealous advocacy for current and prospective public housing tenants and mobile voucher holders in the greater Boston area. Berton has served as co-president, policy and outreach director, and a member of the intake committee for TAP. Her diligent efforts drove forward a large-scale policy project — creating comprehensive FAQs for tenants across Massachusetts navigating a new eviction sealing system.