Date: 2009-12-15
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 4194. the Law Student Clinic Participation Act of 2009. makes a simple yet important change to Federal law so as to increase law students access to clinics and other law school programs. Nearly 44.000 law students nationwide will graduate this year from more than 200 law schools across this country. During their time in school. each of these students will study property. criminal. constitutional. and contract law. just to name a few. And these classes not only instruct the students on the relevant case law or statutes but also attempt to teach them how to think like a lawyer. that is. to analyze cases from a lawyers perspective. As important as that is. equally important are the clinical programs offered by virtually every law school in the country that teach students how to practice law. Clinical programs include prosecution and defense. appellate advocacy. including death penalty appeals projects. juvenile justice. and even tax assistance clinics. Yet. a littleknown provision in Federal criminal lawFederal criminal law. that is. it makes is a crimeprevents certain law students from participating in these clinics. In other words. they would be subject to criminal penalties if they participated in these clinics. That is because section 205 of title 18 prescribes criminal penalties for government employees who provide outside legal assistance in a case against the United States or adverse to a substantial U.S. interest. Therefore. law school students. or even staff. who are also employed by the Federal Government. full time or part time. may be barred from participating in these valuable clinical programs. The impact of this provision is perhaps no greater than right here in our Washington. D.C.. metropolitan area. which is the home to over half a dozen law schools. It comes as no surprise that many of these schools students are also Federal Government employees. Some of the schools have night programs. so the students work full time during the day and take classes at night. Many times they do work for the Federal Government or the D.C. Government. but because of their employment. they are. therefore. disqualified from participating in these extremely beneficial programs. This was most certainly not Congress intent when it enacted section 205. H.R. 4194. remedies this problem by extending an existing exemption within the statute to include Federal employee law students. The bill. therefore. appropriately allows students and staff to participate in clinics. including those that are adverse to the Federal or D.C. Governments. howeverand this is importantthe bill continues to prohibit any actual conflict of interest involving specific parties. Therefore. if the student or staff member is involved in a matter which would be a direct conflict of interest. they are not covered by this waiver. It would seem that this is a commonsense solution to provide those students employed by the government the same opportunities as other students. I might say. Mr. Speaker. when this came to my attention. I thought that perhaps we could have a relatively simple. straightforward waiver or exemption to take care of this problem. which was unanticipated by the Congress when it passed the relevant law. and. therefore. I would urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill. And if the gentleman from Tennessee has no other speakers. I would yield back the balance of my time.