For many students and instructors, social justice is the driving motivation for the School of Law’s clinical programs, all of which benefit poor people whose welfare depends on effective advocacy. Linking theory with practice, the clinics emphasize problem solving skills while exploring the role of law and advocacy in the lives of people who are often deprived of full access to the justice system. The clinical instructors, all leading experts with significant field experience, act as guides, providing students with structured and supportive opportunities in a variety of settings, from hospitals and prisons to welfare offices and city halls.

The law school offers upper-level students five courses in clinical legal education:

Criminal Advocacy
Domestic Violence
Poverty Law and Practice
Prisoners’ Rights
Public Health

While providing students with a rich blend of theory and practice, the clinics fill a unique niche in serving community needs. Professor James V. Rowan, who has devoted his career to representing poor people and their organizations, monitors and coordinates all of the clinical courses.

Each of the clinical courses is broadly described below.

This is a course about you, because all advocacy begins with that -- with who you are. There are three basic interrelated facets of this course: (1) three-person teams will each represent a person who has been accused of committing a crime (the venue is Roxbury District Court); (2) participants will attend a 3+ hour class twice a week to work on, among other things, advocacy skills and the mechanics of representing clients; and (3) through extensive reading and role playing, and through self-exploration exercises, participants will dig into themselves, explore who they are as persons, to find the source of their own personal power as advocates. This is a demanding course -- on your time, on your mind and on your emotions. The field work -- working with the client, investigating the case, interviewing witnesses, preparing for and going to court -- will demand your time and energy (probably around 10 to 15 hours per week). The readings are lengthy and essential. The role-playing exercises demand serious out-of-class preparation. In-class participation is unavoidable (no hiding, just like in a courtroom). Register only after considering all of this. Students should read, before registering, the instructor's article, "Learning to Fight Against the Death Penalty at the Trial Lawyers College" (posted on TWEN), to get a more concrete sense of what is expected. If nothing else, you'll learn from this article that if you expect or want to learn a "bag of tricks" in the hopes of becoming an effective trial lawyer, then you ought not register for this course. This course is designed to heighten our consciousness of what it means to be persuasive, what it feels like to be prepared for courtroom battle and what is entailed (intellectually and emotionally) in representing indigent criminal defendants. The course will not turn you into Clarence Darrow; and that's a good thing, because no course could turn Clarence Darrow into you. There will be a mandatory advocacy exercise (most likely a mock trial) at the end of the term.

For more information contact:

Professor Daniel R. Williams
(617) 373-5986

The Domestic Violence Clinic, part of the Domestic Violence Institute, focuses on violence prevention, restraining order enforcement and criminal intervention in Dorchester District Court, Boston's largest community court. Students interview and counsel clients, and advocate in the courtroom. Students may also gain academic credit and experience representing battered women in complex family law cases handled in the Probate Courts through independent study and cooperative education placements at legal services offices, legal projects at battered women's shelters and other community agencies, and at the offices of private practitioners affiliated with the Institute.

While the clinic is available to upper-level students only, first-year students may attend the Domestic Violence Institute's annual fall conference, which introduces incoming students to legal advocacy for battered women in Massachusetts. Throughout the fall and winter, institute staff sponsor a series of seminars and events to familiarize students with domestic violence issues, in general, and local abuse prevention initiatives, in particular. First-year students with an interest in immediate training and volunteer opportunities may also apply to join BMC/DVI, a volunteer project in which law students staff the Boston Medical Center Emergency Department on nights and weekends, interviewing women and providing advocacy services where domestic violence issues are disclosed.

For more information contact:

Professor Lois H. Kanter
(617) 373-4000
l.kanter@neu.edu
or
Professor Clare Dalton
(617) 373-4000
c.dalton@neu.edu

This clinic represents community-based organizations that seek to give poor people a powerful voice for self-determination. These poor people's organizations empower their members on issues of housing, work and welfare. Organizational goals are pursued through community education, individual and group advocacy.

Clinic students are assigned to represent organizations, their members and individual clients who seek assistance. In addition to community education, students appear before administrative, legislative and judicial decisionmakers on behalf of their clients. Students focus on particular substantive legal areas such as employment, housing and welfare, and learn to make that knowledge available to community organizations.

For more information contact:

Professor James V. Rowan
(617) 373-3347
j.rowan@neu.edu

Under the close supervision of two experienced practitioners, students develop and refine advocacy skills while representing prisoners in Massachusetts. Typically, each student handles both an adversarial proceeding (a disciplinary hearing) and a non-adversarial proceeding (parole-related hearing or classification hearing) from beginning to end. Through this experience, students learn how to properly conduct client/witness interviews and thorough factual investigations, examine and cross-examine witnesses effectively and make persuasive opening and closing statements. Students also learn how to write winning administrative appeals. In addition, the clinic presents a survey of the constitutional law relating to the sentencing process and the rights of prisoners while incarcerated and on parole.

For more information contact:

Professor Wallace E. Holohan
(617) 373-3628
w.holohan@neu.edu

In cooperation with the school's Public Health Advocacy Institute, the Public Health Legal Clinic covers tobacco control issues in depth, while also focusing on the emerging obesity epidemic and issues involving the gun and pharmaceutical industries. It considers the conflict between individual rights and the need to protect the public health.

For more information contact: