Constitutional Litigation Clinic

Course Description

The Constitutional Litigation Clinic will provide students an opportunity to work intensively on a number of cases challenging state repression of vulnerable communities, largely focused on carceral/policing systems and primarily through the mechanisms of impact litigation and strategic advocacy. Students in the Fall 2024 semester will work with Professor Azmy on constitutional and civil rights litigation with prominent civil rights organizations, including the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Fieldwork and Learning Outcomes

Depending on the status of the case and pedagogical value of student participation, students may have the opportunity to work on cases such as Floyd v. City of New York, to enforce remedial orders of the court, requiring remediation of unconstitutional and racially discriminatory policing; Furlow v. Belmar, challenging St. Louis County’s use of unconstitutional “Wanteds” to arrest predominantly Black residents for purposes of interrogation, without a judicially-obtained warrant; Black Love Resists in the Rust v. Buffalo, a case challenging discriminatory traffic enforcement in Buffalo.  Students may also work on national security/human rights cases such as Al Shimari v. CACI Premier Tech., Inc., seeking redress for Iraqi citizens for suffering torture and cruel inhuman and degrading treatment at Abu Ghraib, against a private military contractor; Tanzin v. Tanvir, a case challenging placement of Muslims on the No Fly List in order to coerce them to become informants on their community.

Students will work on drafting motions and memoranda of law, participate in discovery practice, engage in or support oral advocacy, while learning about various aspects of complex litigation such as class action strategy, theories of liability and defenses in a manner accountable to clients and movement partners.

The seminar component will focus on critiques/theories of lawyering for social change, including movement lawyering principles, and pretrial litigation skills.

Application Procedure

Students interested in taking the Clinic should submit the standard application, resume, and transcript online through CAMS, the online application system. Some students may be contacted to interview with Professor Azmy. If you have questions about the clinic, feel free to email Baher Azmy.

* 7 credits include 4 clinical credits and 3 academic seminar credits.