Science, Health & Information Clinic

Course Description

The Science, Health, and Information Clinic provides legal services to scientific and medical researchers, patient and consumer groups, nonprofit organizations, and other clients. No special degrees or work experience are required, and neither is any experience with any particular area of law. There are no pre- or co-requisite courses. All clinic students, regardless of background, are encouraged to draw on their personal experiences with science, technology, and health care.

Fieldwork

Fieldwork is conducted under faculty supervision. Student attorneys in the clinic fully inhabit the role of the lawyer, gaining real-world experience. Every semester, the clinic takes on a wide range of fieldwork projects offering students broad exposure to different areas of health care, science, technology, law, and policy. Students are matched to their fieldwork projects based on their personal interests and career goals.

In past semesters, the clinic’s fieldwork has included projects across numerous areas of health law. Some projects have sought to improve access to medicines, including insulin. Other projects have sought to understand flows of medical data and protect medical data privacy. Yet other projects have sought to expand open science, data sharing, and public access to valuable scientific, technical, and medical information. In connection with these projects, students have learned and practiced not just health law but patent law, trade secrecy law, privacy law, administrative and regulatory law, constitutional law, transparency law, and more. The clinic uses a wide array of legal tools in service of its clients, including direct client counseling, research and advocacy to policymakers and the broader public, litigation, amicus briefs, petitions and comments to administrative agencies, licenses and other contracts, and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Seminar

Clinic students attend seminars that bridge theory and practice, preparing students for their fieldwork and for legal work after graduation. The seminars include lectures on substantive law; simulations and problem-solving workshops; informal case rounds where student attorneys share challenges in their fieldwork; discussion of lawyers’ rules of professional responsibility; and more.

Application Procedure

Students should submit the standard application, resume, and transcript online through CAMS. The clinic director may conduct interviews of some applicants.

* 7 credits include 4 clinical credits and 3 academic seminar credits each semester.
** All students are welcome and encouraged to apply. The clinic will teach all relevant substantive law students need to know.
*** A course or two in any of the following may prove useful: health law, administrative law, privacy law, patent law, trade secrecy law, First Amendment law, media law.