Armin Salek
Youth Justice Alliance

Personal Bio

Armin is the Executive Director of the Youth Justice Alliance. After graduating from The University of Texas, he attended the University of Houston Law Center. During his final semester, Armin served as a law instructor at a local high school where he inspired students to dream of legal careers, but left them without the resources to succeed. Following this experience, Armin became a full-time high school law teacher and mentor for aspiring attorneys from underrepresented communities. Armin received the Rather Prize for Education Innovation (2019), Austin High School Teacher of the Year (2020), and Texas Young Lawyer of the Year (2021) for his instruction and establishing the first high school legal aid clinic. Armin recently completed his Master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education (2021).

Project Description

When law is the least diverse profession in America, clients lack access to legal support in a language they understand. These legal knowledge deserts appear in predominantly minority communities, and a lack of access to legal careers leads to underrepresentation in policy-making circles.

The Youth Justice Alliance transforms high school students into legal assistants and valuable sources of legal knowledge for their community through our on-campus high school legal aid clinics. In exchange for their hard work, we offer students a rigorous legal education, mentorships, and institutional knowledge to support their professional goals. For students who pursue non-legal careers, they leave with important information about their rights as tenants, students, employees, migrants, and transferable skills that will help them regardless of industry. We democratize the law.