Clinical Courses
Asylum and Convention Against Torture (CAT) Appellate Clinic
Students are selected for participation via lottery. Students will write appellate briefs to the Board of Immigration Appeals on behalf of clients who have petitioned to remain in the United States because they face persecution in their home countries. These clients may have represented themselves pro se in Immigration Court. During the first part of the semester students will learn substantive and procedural asylum and CAT law. Classes may also cover practical knowledge needed for effective representation, such as advanced research and writing skills. During the second part of the semester, students will work in pairs on appellate briefs. Students will contact and communicate with clients during this time, although some clients may be incarcerated, and many will be out-of-state, so that the level of client contact will vary. The students’ cases will provide a basis for more in-depth substantive learning, as well as advanced research and writing skills and attorney-client issues.
Capital Punishment Clinic: Post Conviction Litigation
Professors select students for participation. Work involves death penalty post-conviction litigation: investigation and the preparation of petitions, memoranda and briefs. This course is taught as a clinic. Two or possibly three South Carolina death row cases are worked on by students. Case selection depends on both pedagogical factors and litigation needs of the inmates. Students read the record and research legal issues. Some students are involved in investigation, while others assist in the preparation of papers. All students are included in discussions regarding the necessary investigation and strategy for the cases.
Capital Trial Clinic
Professors select students for participation. Students investigate issues that are unique to a capital trial, with a focus on a specific capital trial and the issues it presents.
Criminal Defense Clinic
Professor selects students for participation. Students represent defendants in non-felony, non-jury criminal cases. The course has both a classroom and courtroom component. The classroom component focuses on all aspects of the handling of a criminal case, including criminal law and procedure, ethics, trial strategy, plea bargaining and trials. The courtroom component involves attendance at court proceedings, including pre-trial conferences. Each student will interview clients and witnesses, prepare clients and witnesses for trial, conduct negotiations, do legal research, conduct fact investigation, prepare discovery demands and engage in motion practice.
Full-Term Externship
Professors select students for participation. The Full-Term Externship course allows students to earn 12 credit hours as externs working full time at approved placement sites - usually governmental or non-profit organizations - during the student's 4th, 5th or 6th semesters. Written application for the course must be submitted to the instructors during the preceding semester. The instructors review the applications and grant students conditional approval, contingent on acceptance by the placement and identification of an attorney at the placement who will supervise and mentor the extern. In addition to his or her work responsibilities for the placement, the extern will prepare weekly journal entries, provide samples of written work product, engage in regular electronic communication with the instructors, host the instructors for a site visit, and do a written evaluation of the placement experience.
Government Benefits Clinic 1
Students are selected for participation via lottery. The course has a substantive component, in which a broad conceptual understanding of a complex and controversial area of law and public policy is developed, and a live client clinical experience, in which those concepts can be applied in solving actual client problems. The substantive component of the course provides an introduction to government benefits law by examining various social insurance and need-based benefit programs including Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Food Stamps. Case handling involves the representation of clients in government benefits cases involving the Tompkins County Department of Social Services, the N.Y.S. Dept. of Labor, and the Social Security Administration. The course also includes a lawyering skills classroom component, Clinical Skills 1 or Clinical Skills 3. See Public Interest Clinic 1 or 3 for a description of these classes.
Government Benefits Clinic/Neighborhood Legal Services Externship
Students are selected by the externship site based upon their resume, letter of interest and an interview. This course is a combination of Government Benefits and the Neighborhood Legal Services Externship and either Clinical Skills class 1 or 2. The course is the same as Government Benefits except that the case handling component involves handling cases for the Ithaca office of Neighborhood Legal Services. See that description for additional details.
International War Crimes Research Clinic
Professor selects students for participation. Students perform legal research and draft memoranda to be submitted to the Office of Defense for the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The classroom component provides an overview of international war crimes and the prosecution and defense of those crimes. Each student will undertake several research projects throughout the semester.
Judicial Externship
Professor selects students for participation. Students work one or two full days per week with a state or federal trial or appellate court judge in central New York. Work involves courtroom observation, conferences with the judge, research and writing memoranda, and drafting decisions. The emphasis is on learning about judges and the judicial decision-making process. There are weekly class meetings with readings and discussions of topics related to the externship experience. While the primary focus is the student's work at the placement, each student will also do class presentations, weekly journal entries, provide written work samples and meet individually with the faculty member.
Labor Law Clinic
Professor selects students for participation. This course provides students with the opportunity to represent employees in a variety of labor disputes. Students work with union representatives and may appear before the NLRB and other decision-making authorities. The classroom component addresses relevant substantive and procedural law, and relevant lawyering skills.
Law Guardian Externship
Students are selected by the externship site based upon their resume, letter of interest and an interview. Students are placed at the Tompkins County Law Guardian office, where they assist the attorneys in the representation of children in abuse and neglect cases, juvenile delinquency proceedings, and PINS (Person in Need of Supervision) cases. Students also may have their own cases, in which they will assume primary responsibility for the representation. Duties may include interviewing, investigation, drafting memoranda and motions, and trial preparation. There will be several meetings with the instructor during the semester for discussion of issues arising from and related to the representation of children. Bi-weekly journals are also required.
Legislative Externship
Students are selected by the externship site based upon their resume, letter of interest and an interview. Students work with the local New York State Member of Assembly. Work involves drafting legislation, tracking legislation for constituents, legal research and writing, and responding to constituent requests that particularly require legal research of an explanation of law. The emphasis is on learning about legislative process, drafting of legislation, understanding the reasons for statutory ambiguity, and developing various skills. There are several informal meetings with the faculty supervisor related to the externship experience.
Neighborhood Legal Services Externship
Students are selected by the externship site based upon their resume, letter of interest and an interview. Cases involve the representation of clients of a legal services office, the Ithaca office of Neighborhood Legal Services (NLS). Along with case handling, this externship includes a classroom component, provided by Clinical Skills 1, 2, or 3. The classes are devoted to the development of lawyering skills and issues related to professional responsibility and the role of an attorney. In addition, each student will meet periodically with the faculty supervisor for review of the placement experience.
Prosecution Clinic
Professor selects students for participation. Students prosecute non-felony, non-jury trials in the Ithaca City Court. The course has both a classroom and a courtroom component. The classroom component focuses on criminal law and procedure, prosecution ethics and various pre-trial and trial skills, including fact investigation, legal research, preparation of witnesses (typically police officers), responding to discovery demands and engaging in motion practice. The courtroom component involves regular attendance at Ithaca City court’s non-jury terms. Each student will be expected to conduct multiple trials during the semester, depending on docket volume, and to engage in plea-bargaining negotiations as needed.
Public Interest Clinic 1
Students are selected for participation via lottery. Students handle civil cases for low-income clients of the Public Interest Clinic under the supervision of clinic faculty. Students interview and counsel; investigate and analyze facts; interrelate substantive and procedural law with facts in the context of actual representation; develop strategies to handle clients' problems; identify and resolve professional responsibility issues; do legal writing; negotiate and settle cases; and represent clients at administrative hearings, trials and appeals. Classroom component is provided by the Clinical Skills 1 class, in which students develop interviewing, counseling, negotiation, and advocacy skills through the use of readings, videotapes, discussions, demonstrations, and simulation exercises.
Public Interest Clinic 2
Professors select students for participation. Students handle civil cases, participate in a classroom component, Clinical Skills 2, and help supervise participants in Public Interest Clinic 1. Cases are handled as described in the course description for Public Interest 1. Students represent the clinic's clients in both federal and state courts. Clinical Skills 2 builds on the skills taught in Clinical Skills 1 and may address such topics as fact investigation and analysis, pre-trial activities and drafting.
Public Interest Clinic 3
Professors select students for participation. Students handle civil cases, participate in a classroom component, Clinical Skills 3, and help supervise participants in Public Interest Clinic 1. Cases are handled as described in the course description for Public Interest 1. Students represent the clinic's clients in both federal and state courts. Clinical Skills 3 builds on the skills taught in Clinical Skills 1 and 2, and may address such topics as alternative dispute resolution, formal discovery, and motion practice.
US Attorney's Office Clinic
Students selected by U.S. Attorney's Office. Students work at the US Attorney’s Office, Northern District of NY, performing work under the direction of Assistant US Attorneys. In addition to the 12-15 hours spent on this work, students attend a weekly seminar.
Water Law in Theory and Practice
Professor selects students for participation. The primary focus of the clinic will be key topics in water law in New York State that have significance in wider national or international contexts. The classroom component will be combined with individual research projects on key water law issues selected with the instructor, and undertaken by the students. Work will include travel in New York State to meet leaders concerned with the subject of the projects, or to participate in key meetings as these may occur. Students will be expected participate in a three part Colloquia on Eastern Water Law being jointly organized by the instructor and the Pace and Albany Law Schools.
Women and the Law Clinic
Students are selected for participation via lottery. Students represent women clients who have legal matters in the family law area (divorce, custody, support, domestic violence). That representation provides opportunities to interview and counsel clients, engage in research and writing, as well as a variety of pre-trial and trial activities. Clinic students work with the staff at the Advocacy Center, the local agency serving victims of domestic violence, which refers clients to the Clinic. The W&L classroom component focuses on domestic violence, the substantive and procedural law related to the cases, and on a variety of issues affecting women as clients and lawyers. Students also participate in the lawyering skills classroom component, Clinical Skills 1 or Clinical Skills 3. See Public Interest Clinic 1 or 3 for a description of these classes.
