The Clinic offers students an opportunity to gain practical experience and develop lawyering skills by handling asylum, refugee, and other immigration cases. Students perform casework under the supervision of the faculty instructors, who are also practicing immigration attorneys. Weekly class sessions focus on the role of an attorney representing immigration clients, including the recurring procedural, substantive and ethical issues that arise in such cases. For example, students learn about the particular challenges of working with clients from diverse cultures, including the difficulties of communicating with clients through a translator. Classes provide a basic background in asylum law and other relevant areas of immigration practice as well as the practical aspects of file maintenance, client interviews, and preparation of affidavits, legal memoranda and supporting country documentation.
Students handle approximately two immigration cases of varying complexity during the year.
The cases are selected to provide students with diverse and challenging legal experiences, including representation of clients in administrative and court proceedings. The Clinic represents clients from all regions of the world. The Public Interest Law Clinic is a single semester clinical course that provides both classroom instruction and field work experience in public interest representation. Weekly class sessions explore the role of the public interest lawyer, the attorney-client relationship and basic interviewing, counseling, and negotiation skills. Each student also works on an actual public interest project under the supervision of a practicing public interest attorney.