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Clinical Program Faculty Updates for Spring '26
1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic
Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer, Clinical Professor of Law, Director of the 1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic
Ezra Brown, Clinical Teaching Fellow, Immigration Law & Advocacy Clinic
Spring 2026 has welcomed a new cohort of 1L students to the Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic. Each 1L team is working directly with an asylum seeker currently living in upstate New York. The students are building their cases through client interviewing, legal research, and country conditions evidence. Students are engaged in client-centered, trauma-informed advocacy as they build rapport with their clients and develop their legal theories in support of their clients.
Further, 1L and advanced clinic students are handling Special Immigrant Juvenile Status cases for undocumented children; working on immigration relief for several clients who have suffered abuse; and representing DACA clients applying for employment-based visas through the Path2Papers project housed by the clinic.
In February, clinic students, faculty, and staff participated in a hybrid conference held in person at the Institute for Legal Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City and on Zoom. Professor Kelley-Widmer joined faculty from clinics across Mexico, the United States, Argentina, and Spain to discuss the work of law clinics engaged in human rights work on behalf of migrants. Path2Papers staff Lily Kurtz presented on P2P’s work and law students Sofia Cuevas Dorador ’26 and Samina Singh ’28 described a mock case to illustrate the client work the clinic does. The conference was conducted entirely in Spanish, with simultaneous translation provided for Cornell Law participants. Overall, this conference was a meaningful opportunity to engage with an international legal community and to consider shared strategies and obstacles.
As part of the clinic’s work on behalf of detained immigrants, Professor Kelley-Widmer is coordinating a national network of immigration clinics working with detained individuals. Further, faculty and students will travel to the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia in March 2026 to provide Know Your Rights information, explain legal processes, and assess conditions. The clinic is also representing an individual currently detained at the Buffalo facility, and students are developing legal strategies to advocate for his release.
Clinic students provide public-facing advocacy through the inter-clinic Community Legal Information Project to deliver informational presentations about Constitutional rights for the Ithaca community and beyond. Students are also working on public-facing resources for Path2Papers clients and in collaboration with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.
Appellate Criminal Defense Clinic
Rachel T. Goldberg — Clinical Professor of Law (Lawyering)
In the spring of 2026, Appellate Criminal Defense Clinic students continued to advocate vigorously for incarcerated New Yorkers before appellate courts. Avery Newcom ’26 argued before a five-judge panel at New York’s Appellate Division, First Department, contending that evidence describing our client’s prior convictions was irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial to his trial. Meanwhile, Ian Hayes ’26 argued before the same court that another client’s manslaughter conviction should be reversed and dismissed, arguing that the conviction lacked sufficient evidence and that the jury was improperly influenced by a detective’s inappropriate testimony.
Current clinic students are tackling two additional appeals with compelling legal issues. In one case, they are again challenging the improper admission of evidence about past acts while arguing that the conviction lacked sufficient supporting evidence, among other issues. In the second appeal, students are arguing that our client’s robbery conviction lacked sufficient evidence and that the court gave the jury faulty and confusing instructions that undermined the verdict.
Beyond their appellate arguments, students are maintaining connections with clients by visiting them in correctional facilities and are also assisting with parole applications for former clinic clients, ensuring that the clinic’s holistic representation extends outside of the courtroom.
Asylum and Convention Against Torture Appellate Clinic
Estelle McKee, Clinical Professor of Law (Lawyering)
This semester, the Asylum and Convention Against Torture Appellate Clinic clinic obtained a new immigration court hearing for a young Salvadoran man whom the clinic has represented since 2022. After a student-led mediation in the Ninth Circuit resulting in a remand, the clinic represented this client before the Board of Immigration Appeals, arguing that the client’s criminal convictions had been validly vacated for immigration purposes. Despite stiff opposition from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Board agreed with the arguments in the clinic brief—drafted by Angelina Leach ’26—and found the client newly eligible to seek asylum and withholding of removal. This particular client also has new grounds for relief: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) published a national press release falsely portraying him as a member of MS-13. He has never been a member of MS-13. Threats and attacks by MS-13 gang members are the original reason he and his father left El Salvador. ICE’s press release has now put this client in significant danger of persecution by the government of El Salvador if he returns.
This semester, students are representing asylum seekers in two cases before the Board of Immigration Appeals. The first case involves a client whom the the clinic has represented since 2021, arguing on her behalf before the Board, the Second Circuit, the Board again, and finally Immigration Court, where she won asylum based on her LGBTQ status. Because DHS has challenged this asylum grant, two clinic students are drafting a brief to support it. The second case is an appeal for a Guatemalan client who was represented in immigration court by the Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic. The immigration judge denied her all humanitarian protection on the ground that she could seek protection in Honduras or Ecuador, or in the alternative, on the ground that she failed to make out a prima facie case for this protection. Clinic students have drafted a notice of appeal challenging these decisions on constitutional, statutory, and regulatory grounds, and are now preparing an appeal brief. Lastly, a student team is preparing a brief in the Eleventh Circuit on behalf of a Russian national tortured by police after his political protests.
In addition to full representation, the clinic continues to work with Justice for Migrant Families to provide advice to detainees in the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility Batavia, New York, who are appealing their removal orders.
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Clinic
Gautam Hans, Clinical Professor of Law
Students in the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Clinic have worked on a variety of projects relating to protecting constitutional rights. Clinic student Eric Simmons ’27 was quoted in a New Republic article on campaigns to end the use of Flock surveillance cameras in local communities. The clinic has worked with residents in Ithaca concerned about Flock’s practices to try to end the use of such cameras in Ithaca and Tompkins County. On March 4, the Ithaca Common Council unanimously supported a resolution to remove the cameras. Students in the clinic also continue to work on litigation and research projects on topics concerning book banning, religious freedom, First Amendment rights of elected officials, and the independence of clinical legal education.
Education Law Practicum
Ellen Eagen, Adjunct Professor of Law
This spring, students in the Education Law Practicum (ELP) have engaged with some of the most pressing and evolving issues at the intersection of law and education — from cutting-edge questions in educational innovation to grassroots Know Your Rights initiatives.
Throughout the semester, law students have authored research memos and served as thought partners to school leaders and school board members on a range of critical topics, including but not limited to the development of restorative justice discipline models, the legal boundaries around filming minors at sporting events, and the application of artificial intelligence in educational pedagogy.
On the innovation front, ELP students had the opportunity to meet with Andrew Bosworth, Chief Technology Officer of Meta, as well as education leaders from across the country — from California to New York — including the Director of Innovation at the Harlem Children’s Zone. These conversations explored the promise and legal implications of innovation in schools, including AI and how we reimagine k-12 educational programming to ensure they serve students from all economic backgrounds.
ELP has also been active in litigation this semester. Law students filed a Notice of Claim with the New York Secretary of State on behalf of a family whose child was sexually harassed in school including claims relating to personal injury, emotional harm, and consequential damages arising from negligent supervision and infliction of emotional distress. ELP anticipates amending the claim to raise issues relating to human rights law and libel in the coming months. In the course of developing that case, law students uncovered what appears to be a pattern of the school district deploying Child Protective Services as a retaliatory tool against parents who have raised complaints — a deeply troubling finding that ELP is currently analyzing to determine whether a broader, systemic-targeted claim against the school district is warranted.
ELP students also brought their legal knowledge directly into the community, completing the semester with a Know Your Rights program at an independent charter school in Syracuse, New York. Working with high school students, law students led interactive sessions covering a broad range of legal topics that are immediately relevant to young people navigating the world today.
The workshops included topics that the high school students specifically asked to learn about — including law relating to encounters with law enforcement and ICE as well as freedom of speech and its limits in both school and public settings. ELP students also guided high school students through the often misunderstood terrain of privacy and social media, helping them understand what protections exist and where vulnerabilities lie in their digital footprint. Practical sessions on protecting one’s money gave students foundational knowledge about financial rights and consumer protections, while discussions on immigration and deportation provided critical information for students and families living in an uncertain legal landscape. The program also tackled the serious legal consequences of sexting, an issue that disproportionately affects teenagers who are often unaware of the criminal exposure involved. The program was met with enthusiasm by staff and high school students. For ELP students, it was a powerful reminder that access to legal information is itself a form of justice.
First Amendment Clinic
Mark Jackson, Director of the First Amendment Clinic and Adjunct Professor of Law
In recent months, the First Amendment Clinic filed an important lawsuit seeking to establish rights for protestors in privately owned public spaces, secured important victories for clients, and launched a pilot initiative focused on enhancing the First Amendment and open government rights of citizens and officials as they seek to participate in the activities of their local school boards in New York State.
A suit the clinic filed in December on behalf of a retired prosecutor seeks to make it clear that people have the same speech rights in New York City’s privately owned public spaces as they do in any other public space.
In November, a New York appellate court quashed a subpoena seeking the identity of a clinic journalist client’s unnamed but non-confidential source, reaffirming the high bar New York’s Shield Law sets for obtaining any unpublished information from a journalist. Local Journalism Attorney Michael Linhorst argued the appeal.
In December, the Arizona Superior Court denied motions to dismiss The Intercept’s case seeking access to records involving the mass surveillance of citizens and non-citizens alike sending $500 or more across the Mexican border. Alexander Venditti ’25 argued on behalf of The Intercept, with co-counsel Zwillinger Wulkan and the clinic team drafting the opposition papers.
The clinic and co-counsel Greenberg Traurig secured multiple discovery victories in the fall as well in a First Amendment retaliation matter on behalf of Catskills-based newspaper The Reporter. The motions were argued by Celina Rivernider ’26, Associate Director Heather Murray, and Cynthia Neidl of Greenberg Traurig.
The clinic also launched its pilot Local Government Project initiative in December, which will assess, through the lens of the First Amendment, the policies and practices of school boards across the state. The project aims to identify policies and practices that fall below best practices and to work towards meaningful change that promotes freedom of expression and the public’s right to know.
International Human Rights Clinic
Sandra Babcock, Clinical Professor of Law
On March 4, 2026, the Tanzanian Court of Appeal vacated the conviction and death sentence of clinic client Lemi Limbu, a woman who has spent nearly twelve years on death row after she was wrongly convicted for the murder of her daughter. Lemi lives with intellectual disability and cannot name the days of the week, remember the full names of her family members, estimate how old she is, tell the time, or count cash. She is also a survivor of brutal sexual violence from the time she was a child. Lemi first became pregnant by rape, and she was just fifteen when she gave birth to her first child. When Lemi reported her daughter’s death, she told the police that a local man was involved. The police never arrested him. Despite the absence of forensic evidence and eyewitness testimony linking her to her daughter’s death, she was convicted and sentenced to death in 2015. The clinic, together with the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, has been assisting Lemi’s Tanzanian lawyers since 2018.
Transnational Disputes Clinic
Ian Kysel, Associate Clinical Professor of Law
Students in the Transnational Disputes Clinic continue to work to advance fundamental rights through strategic engagement with transnational litigation matters. In November, the clinic celebrated the publication of a symposium in the European Investment Law and Arbitration Review considering its work to advance public-interest claims in investor-state arbitration. In December, clinic students filed a case against the Kingdom of Eswatini at the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, challenging the reception and detention of immigrant, nationals of so-called ‘third countries,’ sent there by the United States under a secret bilateral agreement involving payments of over $5.1 million. The Commission recently green-lighted the case. Earlier in the fall semester, Professor Kysel and the Law School hosted Gehad Madi, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, for a series of talks and seminars. In recent months, clinic students have also filed a string of amicus curiae briefs on behalf of prominent immigrants’ rights and human rights organizations, highlighting how recent changes in U.S. government policy harm migrants and their families and violate international law, including in the D.V.D. et al., in the 1st Circuit and RAICES et al., in the D.C. Circuit and two briefs in matters before the Supreme Court – Al Otro Lado, et al. and Barbara, et al.
Advocacy for LGBT Communities Practicum
The LGBT Communities Practicum is conducting four law clinics this semester, held on site at locations throughout Central New York and the Southern Tier. The clinic consists of eight students who are each scheduled to handle a minimum of ten cases each, from beginning to end. Over the history of the clinic, students have successfully represented over 1,400 persons, approximately 90 percent of whom identify as gender diverse. The students are having to address ever-more complex issues in the current, challenging environment of transgender civil rights. All cases begin with a direct interview so that students have an opportunity to meet their clients and provide the direct support across broad expanse of legal needs including citizenship, identity, employment discrimination, and medical coverage. The clinic’s reputation has spread across Upstate New York as an oasis of support for an unfairly embattled community.
Prison Education Practicum
Julie Mizutani, Law Research, Instruction, and Liaison Librarian Adjunct Professor of Law
One year ago, about four weeks into the spring semester, thousands of Corrections Officers in nearly all of New York State’s forty-two prisons went on an illegal wildcat strike and refused to show up to their shifts. Most people incarcerated in New York were forced into lockdown, where they had limited movement, limited food, less access to medication, no visitation from family or lawyers, and, of course, no college classes. Last spring, all college classes in the prisons we teach in were cancelled indefinitely, and law students in the practicum had to pivot their work to support various organizations in New York and across the country, providing services, education, and legal information for incarcerated people.
This spring, six Cornell Law students are enrolled in the practicum and have started teaching classes at Cayuga and Five Points Correctional Facilities. Cayuga Correctional Facility began slowly hosting college courses in the fall semester but is now in full swing this spring semester. At Cayuga Correctional Facility, two law students are teaching an Introduction to Paralegal Studies class, and two more law students are participating in the Debate Club. The Debate Club at Cayuga Correctional hopes to debate the Cornell Speech and Debate Team on whether the Supreme Court has lost its ability to be fair and impartial.
At Five Points Correctional Facility, two law students are teaching a civil procedure class. Five Points has been locked down and has been unable to host any college classes or programming until March. We will return to teaching at Five Points more than a year after the lockdown caused by the strike. The semester at Five Points is running on a compressed schedule and starting classes the first week of March. We are glad to be back with our incarcerated students in the classroom, finally.
Tenants Advocacy Program
William J. Niebel, Director
What began in 2020 as a practicum intended to sustain a student-led pro bono advice hotline has, over the past six years, grown into the multifaceted Tenants Advocacy Program. The program now provides direct representation, eviction defense, court monitoring, and technology-driven access to legal information.
This spring, twenty practicum student-attorneys are working on fifty-seven cases, including five in active litigation, under the supervision of Professor Kathryn Krause Wozer and Director William Niebel. Last semester’s victories highlight the impact of their advocacy. In Alfred Town Court, Beril Karakoyun ’27 secured dismissal of an eviction following her excellent oral argument. In Ithaca City Court, Kehan Rattani ’26 obtained a written decision affirming a tenant’s right to withhold and partially abate rent under the warranty of habitability. In a full evidentiary hearing, Morgan Thomas ’26 successfully challenged the termination of her client’s Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher. And in Owego Town Court, Emma Babashak ’ 27 and Eitan Genger ’27 defended against a termination of their client’s subsidized lease, achieving full reinstatement. These outcomes reflect the practicum’s commitment to rigorous clinical training and meaningful advocacy.
Beyond the practicum, the Tenants Advocacy Program’s reach continues to expand. The program’s hotline has received 2,261 intakes (averaging eight per week) and successfully assisted in over 950 tenant cases to date, including more than 650 advice matters and 250 full-representation cases. Seventeen law students are volunteering in advising thirty-three tenants. The program also recently expanded its full-representation service area to nine counties, adding Broome and Chenango Counties. The Rochester Eviction Defense Project continues to grow, having handled 236 active eviction cases in Rochester City Court to date. Summer 2025 intern Sam Clukey ’27 continues this work as an extern.
Institutional and supervisory capacity is expanding; the program is hiring a third full-time attorney. The official website, launched in November thanks to Communications Lead Kennedy Young ’28, now serves as a hub detailing program initiatives. Undergraduate engagement reached another milestone under Assistant Coordinator Amanda Nudelman ’27, with forty-one volunteers now contributing across seven teams, including a new legal assistants team and teams supporting hotline intake, court monitoring, data analysis, tech, clerical, and communications.
In December, Director Niebel’s new treatise on New York landlord-tenant law became available in print.
As housing instability persists across New York, the program remains steadfast in its mission: equipping future advocates while expanding meaningful access to justice for tenants who need it most.
Veterans Law Practicum
James Hardwick, Director, Adjunct Professor of Law
The Veterans Law Practicum continues to expand its litigation docket while students remain actively engaged in complex veterans benefits appeals and military discharge upgrade matters. Much of the program’s work focuses on cases involving military medical retirement, discharge upgrades, and appellate advocacy in federal veterans benefits litigation—areas where the practicum has developed growing subject-matter expertise.
This year, the practicum secured a significant victory in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on behalf of a transgender Black Army combat veteran seeking medical retirement. The case challenged a decision of the Army Board for Correction of Military Records that had denied the veteran’s request to correct his records to reflect medical retirement following serious mental health conditions that emerged after combat service. After extensive briefing and oral argument by the practicum team, the court held that the Board’s decision was arbitrary and contrary to law and granted relief to the veteran. The court issued a reported opinion, making the decision precedential within the Court of Federal Claims and an important development for future litigation involving military medical retirement and records correction cases.
In November, the the practicum hosted a statewide conference at the Law School exploring the importance of advocating for veterans through a human rights framework. Co-sponsored by the New York State Department of Veterans’ Services and the Cornell Law School Gender Justice Clinic, the daylong event brought together advocates, policymakers, and scholars from across New York to discuss issues affecting veterans, including military sexual trauma, immigration and citizenship, pensions and public benefits for low-income veterans, justice-involved veterans, and the experiences of veterans of color. The conference reflected the practicum’s commitment to situating veterans’ legal issues within broader conversations about human rights and access to justice.
The practicum has also recently entered into engagement agreements with Cornell Law alumni at Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Vinson & Elkins to co-counsel on complex federal appellate matters referred to the program. These partnerships reflect the program’s growing reputation in discharge upgrade advocacy and military medical retirement litigation while expanding its capacity to pursue high-impact cases.
The practicum is also proud to report that Jasmine Crain ’26 has been awarded a prestigious two-year Skadden Fellowship with the National Veterans Legal Services Program to work on military medical retirement upgrades. Jasmine is only the second Cornell Law student in the past fifteen years to receive this highly competitive fellowship.