Critical Race Lawyering Civil Rights Clinic

Course Description

The Critical Race Lawyering Civil Rights (“CRLCR”) Clinic is an intensive semester-long experiential course in which law students engage in direct representation of individual or organizational clients in areas where discrimination and inequality are pervasive. The clinic specifically focuses on issues impacting marginalized communities in the South. The CRLCR clinic docket will include a wide range of substantive types of cases including but not limited to discrimination in education, housing, policing, employment, or public accommodations. It trains students in efforts to advance racial and social justice through litigation, education and outreach, and policy advocacy.

A unique aspect of the clinic is that students will learn valuable lawyering skills while also learning to apply critical legal theory frameworks to their casework. For example, Critical Race Theory (“CRT”) is an analytical tool used to frame legal (and non-legal) problems concerning race, inequality, and power. CRT acknowledges the communally constitutive connection between race (or membership in any traditionally subordinated group) and the law. Students in the CRLCR Clinic will learn how to utilize the valuable insights offered by CRT to advocate for their individual clients and to address systemic issues of inequality based on race, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or membership in any traditionally marginalized group.

Fieldwork

Students will engage in direct representation of individual and/or organizational clients in active litigation. Students will make strategic choices regarding the best and most appropriate advocacy route to achieve client goals. Students will also complete non-litigation-based advocacy projects such as creating policy briefs, formulating advocacy strategies to advance local legislation, and community outreach. Students may also draft amicus briefs advancing novel legal theories using critical theory frameworks.

In prior years, a representative sample of the field work has included:

• Represented a client in filing a complaint with the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) and successfully mediated the claim.
• Co-counseled a lawsuit brought against a prison and individual officers challenging the constitutionality of the prison’s practice of shackling incarcerated pregnant people during labor and post-partum.
• Represented several defendants in a lawsuit in which they were accused of defamation and civil conspiracy for reporting a health care provider’s racially insensitive comments and conduct and successfully argued a motion for summary judgment.
• Represented eighteen plaintiffs in challenging law enforcement use of force tactics during a racial justice march.
• Authored an amicus brief challenging the constitutionality of using peremptory strikes based on a prospective jurors’ support for Black Lives Matter.
• Represented incarcerated people with life sentences in seeking parole.
• Represented people in filing expungement petitions.
• Coordinated an advocacy campaign regarding the collateral consequences of criminal convictions.
• Represented a racial advocacy group in formulating social media and legal strategies for challenging the legality and legitimacy of a courthouse named after a Confederate general.
• Coordinated an advocacy campaign regarding meaningful access to the courts for people with disabilities.

Seminar

During the seminar, students are taught critical theories regarding lawyering and race, substantive civil rights law and engage in case rounds. Through simulations and discussions, students are also introduced to foundational lawyering skills such as interviewing, counseling, negotiation, case planning, case theory development, and oral advocacy. Finally, students also explore how to apply critical legal frameworks to their casework and advocacy projects.

Learning Outcomes

Students will develop judgment skills including the ability to identify and diagnose problems in terms of objectives and alternative strategies; to assess the risks and benefits of outcomes of the proposed action; to take effective action; and to reflect on and learn from experience.  

Students will also gain analytical and reasoning skills.  They will hone their ability to find, analyze, and use relevant legal materials (including, among others, statutes, cases, regulations, and other administrative materials) to identify and resolve problems and communicate legal analysis in a variety of written and oral formats.

Students will also learn professionalism and professional responsibility. They will develop an acute sense of responsibility regarding professional choices and their consequences, including the effects of professional roles, the need to adhere to or depart from professional norms, and the values implicit in those choices.

Students will obtain lawyering skills including interviewing, counseling, case planning & development, case theory development, and oral advocacy.

Finally, students will develop the ability to reflect on the lawyering choices they do and do not make, understand and reflect upon the role of the law in structuring individual and societal relations, learn cross cultural competencies, and learn to recognize and work to address racial bias and inequality within legal systems.

Application Procedure

Students interested in applying for the clinic should submit the standard application, resume, and transcript online through CAMS. To arrange an interview, please use the CAMS system as well. If you have questions regarding the application procedure, please contact Erika Wilson.

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