Memphis Public Interest Law Center

Memphis Public Interest Law Center (“MPILC”) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public interest law firm designed to fill the gap in legal services in the Memphis area through research, education, and advocacy to underserved populations and issues. The Housing Project is our grass-roots legal advocacy project that addresses the rental housing crisis through renter-centered research, education, and advocacy.

We are the only civil legal organization in the region designed to: 1) do advocacy work, 2) focus on renters, and 3) take a grass-roots approach to legal work. We work directly with renters and community groups to identify and execute short term and long term actions designed to change outcomes for individual renters and to change systems that impact all renters. We approach all of our work through a renter-centered lens that focuses on systemic change. We believe the people closest to the problem are closest to the solution; and, teaching a man how to fish feeds him for a lifetime. Thus, empowering the individual and collective voices of those we serve is central to understanding the problem and implementing solutions, and therefore to all of our activities. Accordingly, what we do is as important as how we do it.