Arlene Rivera Finklestein

Advisory Board

pronouns: she/her

Arlene Rivera Finkelstein is Assistant Dean and Executive Director of the Toll Public Interest Center (TPIC) at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She directs the Law School’s wide array of public interest programming, which includes one of the first mandatory pro bono programs in the country. TPIC supervises 26 student pro bono groups, advises students on how best to prepare themselves for public interest careers, and oversees the school’s public interest scholarship program. Finkelstein also teaches Legal Interviewing and Client Counseling at the Law School. Before coming to Penn Law, she was the inaugural director of the Public Interest Resource Center at Widener Law School. Finkelstein began working at Widener as a professor of legal research and writing, where she also taught interviewing and counseling, and public interest law. Finkelstein serves on a number of legal services boards including Community Legal Services and Philadelphia Legal Assistance, Friends of Farmworkers, and the Defender Association of Philadelphia. She received her JD from Temple University Beasley School of Law, and her BS from Cornell University. She began her legal career as an Assistant Defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, where she focused primarily on the defense of juveniles.