Clinical Law Prof Blog

Is peer review a part of your law teaching world? Do your colleagues observe you in the classroom or clinic and give you valuable feedback? No? If you want to know more, take a peek at Albany Law Prof. Mary Lynch's piece over at the Best Practices in Legal Ed Blog: https://bestpracticeslegaled.albanylawblogs.org/2017/09/25/experience-with-peer-support-peer-review-and-feedback-on-teaching/#comment-60827

Larry Donnell Kimmons and Critical Remembrance at Pepperdine

This week, Pepperdine University convened an event to rededicate a portrait of Larry Donnell Kimmons, but this was more than dedicating a portrait and displaying a plaque.  It was an act of critical remembrance, confession, repentance, and hope.

In 1969, George Pepperdine College was on its original campus in Watts. On March 12, a white campus security officer shot and killed, murdered, Larry Donnell Kimmons. Kimmons was a 15 year-old black high school student from the neighborhood on his way to a basketball game in the college gym with his friends. The Graphic reported on this killing and its aftermath in this 2016 feature.   

Pepperdine had admitted black students since its founding in 1937, but through the 1950s it limited campus housing to white students. In 1965, the Watts Revolt erupted around Pepperdine’s campus and sparked the decision to move to Malibu by the early 1970s. The University’s response to Kimmons’s killing sealed the deal to evacuate South Central.  

For years, the University forgot this trauma in its history. Except for a few who kept the story and its shame alive, the move to Malibu afforded an escape and a gloss to let the unpleasantness fade. After student protests in 1969 and 1970, the University erected a plaque and portrait at the old campus, but they never made it to the new campus and vanished from sight.

This week, however, Pepperdine remembered. Pepperdine confessed and repented. Pepperdine made good on its old promise to honor the “handsome man-child” who bled out his life on our campus. Now and henceforth, Pepperdine will honor Kimmons and his life, and remember his traumatic, unjust death, with pride of place in newly renovated Payson library. 

Calling on Christian and Jewish practices of remembrance and markers, the Pepperdine community recalled the moment of blood and trauma as a pivotal moment in our history, erected a marker that will remind the people of the loss and injustice, and committed itself to continuing pursuit of justice and dignity for all people.

Public memory is essential for justice, dignity, and healing from public trauma. Last night was a remarkable and important reckoning for our school.

May we be faithful to the truth and love we witnessed there.   

 

Watch video of the entire, rich event here.

 

 

Forensic Fraud - An important exploration by two Clinical Professors

Two of my colleagues, Jennifer Oliva and Valena Beety, recently collaborated on an article discussing the disadvantages faced by criminal defendants when questioning expert forensic evidence. The existing system does not provide equivalent pre-trial discovery protections for civil and criminal defendants. Civil litigants benefit from the Daubert standards, ensuring any forensic evidence (and similar expert witness evidence) is automatically disclosed and vetted pre-trial. Prosecutors, however, do not automatically disclose evidence in the same manner. Instead, this information is shared shortly before trial. But what happens if you never go to trial? Simple – you remain unaware of the evidence. Beety and Oliva advocate for the importance of parity for criminal defendants, especially given the prevalence of plea deals. The lack of automatic disclosure translates into many defendants entering the plea stage completely unaware of exculpatory forensic evidence. It is unsettling to think an insurance company has greater ability to access and vet evidence than a criminal defendant. Criminal defendants risk the loss of their very freedom and suffer a host of civil, collateral consequences post-incarceration or post-conviction. Civil collateral consequences alone can render them unemployable, increase their risk of homelessness and housing insecurity, and impact their ability to maintain custody of their children. A just system warrants equal, if not greater, protections for these defendants.

There are a number of issues with the existing system that are eloquently explored by the authors in the article. As Clinical Professors, Beety & Oliva exemplify the important role that clinicians can play in the development of legal scholarship and law reform advocacy.

The full article is available here: http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/nulr/vol112/iss1/5/

You can also hear Professor Oliva’s commentary on Edward Chang’s the “Excited Utterance” podcast available here: https://www.excitedutterancepodcast.com/listen/2017/9/11/32-jennifer-oliva

JOBS: Memphis Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic

Via Prof. Danny Schaffzin:

Assistant Professor of Law and Director of Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic

University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law

The University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Law to direct and teach its Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) Clinic starting in the 2018-19 academic year. In accordance with the Law School’s commitment to a unitary-track faculty, this position will entail full tenure rights and equal voting privileges on all faculty issues.

Launched in Fall 2015, the MLP Clinic is the academic centerpiece of the Memphis Children's Health Law Directive (Memphis CHiLD), an innovative alliance of the School of Law, Memphis Area Legal Services, and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.  The Clinic is designed to address legal and social issues impacting the health of low-income children and families throughout Memphis.

Among his or her principal responsibilities, the successful candidate will supervise MLP Clinic students in providing civil legal services to Le Bonheur patients and their families; teach an interdisciplinary curriculum in an accompanying Clinic seminar; engage in outreach to healthcare professionals; partner with the Law School’s Institute for Health Law & Policy and other community stakeholders; and lead efforts to continue the development of Memphis CHiLD and to evaluate its impact.

Candidates must possess a J.D. or equivalent law degree, a minimum of three (3) years of legal practice experience, active membership in at least one state bar, and the ability to obtain Tennessee bar admission upon appointment. See Supreme Court Rule 7, Section 10.02 (allowing special admission to practice for attorneys employed in law school clinical programs). Among other qualifications, candidates should also have a strong desire to supervise and work with students; substantial experience or interest in serving lower-income individuals and communities; demonstrated experience or interest in working with healthcare professionals and students; a commitment to building community relationships and programs; and a demonstrated potential for excellence in teaching and scholarly productivity.

Applicants should apply through the University of Memphis Work Forum (https://workforum.memphis.edu/) and submit a letter of interest, resume, and list of three references to Professor Daniel Kiel, Chair, Faculty Recruitment Committee, [email protected]. Please include “MLP Clinic Director Application” in the subject line of the email.

While the School of Law does not treat race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation as dispositive in hiring decisions, the School has a strong institutional commitment to hiring persons who will add to its diversity.  The University of Memphis is an EEO/AA employer.

CSALE's 2016-2017 Survey of Applied Legal Education

Via Prof. Robert Kuehn:

The Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education’s (CSALE) report on “The 2016-17 Survey of Applied Legal Education” is now available: http://www.csale.org/results.html.

Over 1,100 law clinic and externship faculty from 187 law schools (94% of ABA accredited U.S. schools) participated in CSALE’s latest tri-annual survey. The 2016-17 survey (CSALE’s fourth) provides the most comprehensive, accurate picture to date of clinical legal education programs, courses, and faculty. The report summarizes the collective responses from schools and their faculty on questions relating to program design, capacity, administration, staffing, funding, and pedagogy, and the role of clinical legal education and educators in the legal academy.

In addition to the report, upon request CSALE provides customized information on various aspects of the data to law schools, legal educators, scholars, and oversight agencies.

5 Questions with Professor Helen Kang (Environmental Law and Justice Clinic-Golden Gate University SOL)

Another academic year has begun and it’s important to stay connected and learn from each other and about the impactful clinical work taking place.  Given the recent natural disasters we are seeing, not to mention continuing changes in the federal administration, one can’t help but think of the potential environmental impact.  I had the opportunity to interview Professor Helen Kang, the Director of the Golden Gate University SOL’s Environmental Law and Justice Clinic.

1. You are the Director of the Environmental Law and Justice Clinic at Golden Gate University SOL. Please explain the types of clients you represent and the particular issues the clinic is focused on addressing.

Our clients are extremely diverse, but their goals are unsurprisingly similar. These clients want to improve the health and welfare of their communities by reducing toxic air, soil, or water pollution; and make their opinions matter by ensuring meaningful public participation. Our current and recent clients include grassroots groups without staff, let alone lawyers, to large environmental groups with legal resources in-house. We represent, for example, neighborhood groups from areas known to be most polluted in the San Francisco Bay Area. One such group is Bayview Hill Neighborhood Association headed by a grandmother who’d rather be spending time with her grandchildren but is instead leading the charge to make sure that her community doesn’t get hurt from ill-conceived development decisions that the famously liberal City of San Francisco ironically makes, without considering the adverse impacts to nearby residents. Then there are environmental justice groups working statewide like Greenaction for Health & Environmental Justice, for whom we filed a Title VI complaint with the U.S. EPA’s Office of Civil Rights and successfully obtained a settlement. It obligates California agencies to issue policies geared at equitable language access and criteria for hazardous waste permit issuance. For the same client, we just filed a petition before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to revoke a federal contractor’s materials license for widespread fraud that compromised cleanup of radiological waste at a shuttered shipyard. We also represent traditional environmental groups like California Coastkeeper Alliance, Monterey Coastkeeper, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper, and other keeper organizations to tackle agricultural water pollution. We even represent a city and a trade association called Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association. Overall, big efforts we are undertaking right now with these groups are about government accountability for agricultural water pollution and urban air and soil pollution. As you can see, the laws we use to accomplish our clients’ goals are just as diverse.

2. Congrats on the recent CA Supreme Court win (Friends of the Eel River v. North Coast Railroad Authority, 222472 (Cal. Jul. 27, 2017)! This case involved years of hard work by the ELJC.  Briefly explain why this client and the issues raised were chosen for representation by the clinic, and perhaps some of the work the students were able to complete for the client.

This case establishes that California public agencies can’t rely on federal preemption to shirk their responsibilities under the California Environmental Quality Act. Our client in the case is Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs). The published decision bears the name of the other petitioner whose case was consolidated with our case. Our clinic had worked with CATs in a federal Clean Air Act case in which we had obtained a better settlement than the one U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had negotiated with a pulp mill. After this case finished, CATs then was faced with fighting off a removal of a California Environmental Quality Act case to federal court – the client wanted us to become involved to move for a remand to state court. We did get the remand; from there, we thought the case would not take too long because there are tight deadlines in environmental review cases, and I thought it would be a great experience for our students. I was right and wrong! Students worked on the merits of the case and prepared me for oral argument. They were justices in moot court and grilled me. So I’d say it was a great experience for our students, working alongside our co-counsel, including the Stanford Environmental Clinic. But I was wrong that this would be a short trek. We’ve been working on this case for five years. The case went up to appellate court two times before it finally went to the California Supreme Court. Because the issue before the Court was preemption and not the merits of the case, we are still not done. We initially took this case based on toxic impacts to communities from a large rail reconstruction project, but the importance of the federal statute under which rail carriers are licensed really intrigued us as the case moved forward. Fossil-fuel interests like refineries and coal companies are trying to use the statute, the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act, to bypass local and state laws intended to protect communities. So along the way, we have become experts and have successfully worked on other matters to ensure that federal preemption is not abused.

3. Recently, there have been many changes coming from the administration in Washington D.C. Have any of these impacted the work you do?  If so, in what ways?

Certainly, the rollbacks are devastating to communities everywhere. Environmental burdens unquestionably fall on people of color and low-income communities; they will most acutely feel the impact of the rollbacks. Just look at what’s happening now with climate regulation. Take a look also at Houston after the hurricane – in addition to the unprecedented damage to people and property, it’s wreaked havoc with pollution: initial reports are that more than 5 million pounds of air pollutants have been released (in addition to those allowed under permits). This environmental disaster is occurring against the backdrop of federal funding cuts affecting the very programs that are needed there on the ground now. So, certainly, the effect on us as people is undeniable, and the lack of morals and values being displayed in D.C. is a crisis. But I’d say that the clinic’s work is no different. We have always had our work cut out for us, even before this administration. Systemic and institutional denial of rights to the communities we typically represent has existed since the founding of this nation; and that’s what we are fighting. In fact, one of the most surprising things to my students is how deeply our institutions are complicit in environmental degradation. They can’t understand why agencies don’t do their basic job.

4. As clinicians, we love to learn from what others are doing! Can you please share an insight, “aha moment”, or idea, that has helped make the ELJC successful and impactful not only to its clients but also to the students involved.

Three things that help make us successful are unremarkable but important. First, we accept complex cases. It’s difficult at times to bring students up to speed, but clients need lawyers in complex cases and it’s worth it educationally. The second is when we meet with clients, especially for the first time. We generally don’t limit the amount of time we sit with them. Nor do we have a strict agenda. We listen and listen for a long time. Our clients have a story to tell and knowledge to share. Many of our clients know so much about the environmental condition in which they live and the politics that influence their lives. Trust comes out of the relationship. But we have also made mistakes. It’s so tempting to fit in working on a matter just because a group desperately needs help. In those cases, we can be less successful long-term in problem solving. I think that just means that we need to be transparent with the clients in discussing the consequences of our limited involvement rather than denying services. The last thing that contributes to our success is having two young lawyers who come out of our own program to serve as graduate fellows. They go so far as to sit down and do research together with a student and provide extensive feedback on writing. They can do so much more than I can on my own. They are also able lawyers who do great work on our cases.

5. Let’s talk about your research and specialization in legal education in Korea. This is definitely a focused, niche area of interest so I’d love to understand the tie-in with clinical work.     

I immigrated to the U.S. from South Korea as a 12-year old child with my family. I still read and speak Korean, although I wouldn’t be able to do a law lecture in Korean. So when our school was developing a relationship with schools there, I went and gave a lecture – in English – about clinical education. From that experience, I developed an interest in writing about clinical legal education there and elsewhere and have traveled to Egypt, Spain, and the Philippines on legal education projects. One project was with the ABA-ROLI and another was with the International Senior Lawyers Project. In Spain, I was so impressed that Universitat Rovira I Virgili in Tarragona was so forward thinking in considering environmental justice in its curriculum. In the Philippines, I saw that students were working several jobs going to school, a bit like my students here who have to make ends meet while they put themselves through school. These opportunities force you to think more deeply about clinical education. It’s sometimes hard to sit down and think about theory when you’re up against a briefing deadline. Traveling to less developed places also open your eyes to the privilege I have here. Honestly, I also love to travel.

How do I reflect the best “me” to my students?

In clinic this week, we had the traditional discussion about how each thing we do as lawyers reflects something about us to others.  Clients, judges, government officers, opposing parties, teachers, and others gauge us as we interact with them.  What seems irrelevant to our role in working with them may matter a lot in whether they first decide to trust and respect us. Although many of us wish that people would decide these things based on our reasoning or work product, often it is things like how we sound or look that bring early assessments that are hard to overcome. 

This week, however, I began thinking that perhaps I have gone too far.  As it does most semesters, the discussion began when a student asked what he should wear to clinic. Usually, students regret the question because of my answer, which those of you who know me will have guessed:  “Well, what do you think you should wear to clinic?  Should I think it matters?  Will anyone else?”  It devolves into what I hope is a teaching moment.  It is one of the first times in the semester for students to learn about clinical pedagogy and what it means to really reflect on all you do.   In fact, many clinical teacher readers of this blog may consider the question a “gimme.”  Every action matters, from how lawyers and students present themselves to what witnesses they call.  They must reflect on all of them and the decisions will have consequences.    What they wear is strategic:  do we dress down so the client thinks we are like them? Do we dress up so they think we are professionals?  If we dress down, do we have to do something else to show we can be real lawyers?  Whatever the answer, it must be thought through.  The discussion also helps students grasp that they are really going to be responsible for all the decisions they make in the clinic and that they really will be the primary lawyers for their clients.  Students often have a hard time getting this otherwise.  I write it all over my syllabus.  I say it explicitly many times.  However, it is this discussion that starts to help them get it—they are going to be asking themselves questions before they ask me and their decisions on everything from what to wear to what witnesses to call will be honored as much as possible.

I also learn a lot about my students in this discussion, perhaps judging them unfairly.  Some of them take the discussion in, understand the method, transfer it to other discussions, make a conscious choice about what to wear, and later do or don’t explain their choice to me.  Others half-heartedly listen and try to figure out what I want as they do in many other student-teacher relationships.  And others have this look in their eyes or will say something to the affect of “Can he just f(*&king tell me what to wear?  I know it matters to him.  It’s not that hard.”  I learn I am going to have a hard time teaching these students and will have to adjust how I teach them to make us both happy.  (For those non-clinical teacher readers not understanding this reflection thing, think about whether blog writers like me should use the word “f(*&king” in blog posts and what you think about a)what I am trying to say about the professionalism of students or my relationship with them by putting the word in students’ mouths in this blog and b) what you think you know about me when you saw I wrote “f(*&king” in the blog instead of spelling out the real word.)

Which leads me to why I feel I may have gone too far with this clothes discussion.  I came back to the office and started thinking about all the things I do other than teaching that send signals to my students about me.  I began to go a little nuts.  What did I wear to class?  Why did I choose not to wear a tie that day?  Was it a conscious choice?  What should I generally wear?  I teach a clinical class and a few non-clinical ones like Poverty Law and soon an interviewing counseling and negotiation class.  In all these classes, I want to teach students about practicing with a social justice lens.  Do I have to wear a shirt and tie so they think of me like a teacher?  Would they think more about social justice if I was the hippy-ish flannel shirt guy they sometimes expect to find sitting in my first floor/basement office with my guitar in the corner eating homemade granola (I am that old).  Would that be a problem with my colleagues or clients if I choose to look that way with how they see me? What other things am I doing that show my students who I am so that they can best learn from me? Must I insist they call me Spencer instead of Professor Rand to be the social justice guy?   I have two pictures in my office.  One is a picture I made at a painting party for my daughter where we painted Boathouse Row, a Philadelphia landmark.  The other is a Pop Art picture “seja marinal seja herói,” which I understand to mean “Be an outlaw; Be a Hero!.”  It was painted in honor of a man who was killed by Brazilian resistance in the 1960’s who was known to the artist and others for working to empower lower class movements.  Is only the second one okay?  Is even that poster bad because it is in Portuguese and too stuck up-ish?

For now, I think I have at least learned that maybe my students who only partly engage in this exercise are keeping their sanity and I should respect them more than I have.  The ones who do engage I will have to give credit and think of how I can help sort through those choices that matter more than others and how to not drive oneself crazy doing so, once I figure it out.  And maybe I’ll go out to a thrift shop and find a good jeans and flannel shirt collection for the rest of the semester and see how it goes.  At least I'll think about it.

Poll on Alternate Clinical Models: DEADLINE Mon, September 18

This post asks you to participate in a poll about real-world practice courses that fall between traditional in-house clinic and externship models. Sometimes called “hybrids,” “external clinics,” or “practitioner-supervised clinics,” these models may involve a faculty member (either part-time or full-time) supervising law students in practices outside the law school, a faculty member and practitioners sharing student supervisory responsibilities, and different approaches to teaching the clinic seminar. We plan to use the information in the first instance in connection with a plenary session at the 2017 Midwestern Clinical Conference.

The poll itself will take at most 5-10 minutes and includes space for you to describe and assess a particular course. The poll describes our inquiry more fully and offers some examples. You can find the poll here:

        https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/AltClinicModel

We will close the poll a week from Monday, September 18.

We look forward to your responses and descriptions.

Claudia Angelos, [email protected]

Phyllis Goldfarb, [email protected]

Alex Scherr, [email protected]

Ann Shalleck, [email protected]

UDC David A. Clarke School of Law Offers Clinic-Wide Orientation in Fall 2017

This Fall, clinicians at the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clarke School of Law boldly embarked on what was, for us, a new collaboration to create a clinic-wide orientation. As many readers will know, UDC-DCSL has a rich clinical history and our clinical program is central to our curriculum. Each graduating student, in both our full-time and part-time (evening) program, must complete two seven-credit clinics. We offer a range of clinics and this semester the five of our clinics slated to operate for full-time (day) students undertook just what we ask our students teams to do, intensive collaboration, in furtherance of our shared goals.

Over the summer we met to try to determine what common ground we shared throughout our clinics – ranging in substantive areas from Legislation to Juvenile and Special Education to General Practice, Housing, and Immigration. (Our Tax Clinic, Community and Economic Development Clinic, and the Government Accountability Project are offered in the evening this semester and did not participate in the day clinic orientation). A primary goal was to create a common set of values and a culture across our clinics. Another goal was to set the stage for conversations that would continue within our individual clinics throughout the semester.

We determined that we would first meet for two hours in our individual clinics and then come together as a group. Fueled by pizza and after a round-robin of introductions to all of our clinical faculty and fellows, ably facilitated by Professor Marcy Karin, who directs the Legislation Clinic and with a welcome from UDC-DCSL Dean Shelley Broderick, we launched into the substance for the four hour afternoon session. Practicing what we preach, we circulated a detailed agenda for students outlining our plan for the afternoon.

First, Professor Lindsay M. Harris, Co-Director of the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic led a session focused on clinical pedagogy. Using text-polling and word cloud technology, we opened up the session with an exercise asking students to share just one word to describe what they had heard, around campus, about the clinic which they were now entering. This ice-breaker served as a Launchpad to consider the goals of clinical education broadly. We shared the concept of “zones of learning and how, in clinic, we aim to work in our “stretch zone.” Students individually mapped out the tasks or skills within their comfort zone, stretch zone, and panic zone.

Next up, Professors Faith Mullen and Tianna Gibbs, Co-Directors of our General Practice Clinic led a discussion on professional responsibility and ethics. All UDC-DCSL students must take Professional Responsibility as either a pre or co-requisite to clinic, but this session served to focus on ethical issues specifically within clinic. Professors Mullen and Gibbs, unphased by an unexpected fire alarm mid-session(!), ably guided our students through key topics including unauthorized practice of law, student practice, file maintenance, attorney client privilege, confidentiality, and more. This primed the students to start to think about their role as student attorneys, we hope, throughout the rest of the semester.

Professor Laurie Morin, who directs the Gender Justice Project and currently teaches within the Legislation Clinic, then led a session on professional communication. During the session, Professor Morin shared with the students tips, strategies, and wisdom, but also carefully connected what they had learned during their first year legal research and writing course to their writing within clinic. Professor Norrinda Brown Hayat, Director of the Housing and Consumer Law Clinic, followed up on this presentation with a hands-on presentation for students on using track changes within Microsoft Word and clarifying our clinic writing portfolio graduation requirement.

Freshly armed with a heightened understanding of Mindfulness in the Law thanks to the two-day conference-within-a-conference at SEALS in August, Professor Harris led a brief meditation followed by an introduction to mindfulness. We learned about the growing traction mindfulness has within law schools, companies, and bar associations, and the potential physical and mental health benefits. We concluded the session by walking through the Jeremy Hunter’s Reactivity Map exercise, essentially considering the value of inserting an extra reflective step in between interpreting a situation and subsequent action as a student attorney.

Our final substantive session was focused on acknowledging professional identity and discussing the concept of feeling “othered” within the legal profession. Professor Hayat, using a thought provoking and contemporary video clip to open the discussion, asked each student in the room to contribute just a one word reaction to what they had seen. Professor Hayat then skillfully set the stage for necessary conversations about race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation, and other arenas where personal and professional identity intersect and come into play throughout the semester.

Professor Lauren Onkeles-Klein, Visiting Professor and Director of our Juvenile and Special Education Clinic took on the less-than-desirable task of walking through the nuts and bolts of some key administrative tasks at the end of the day. Through this, students were introduced to key staff and began to develop an understanding of online case management procedures, printing options, interpretation & translation, supplies, copying and mailing documents.

This new collaboration required a great deal of effort by our clinical faculty over the summer, but, we hope that it will sow the seeds for working across clinic and collaborating throughout the semester. We are currently assessing the program and have solicited feedback from student participants in the form of a survey.

We share with the wider clinical community in the hopes of stimulating thought and discussion – do you conduct orientations within your individual clinics? Have your schools tried to provide a broader program, orienting students across clinics? What have been your successes? Your failures? Could this work at your institution, why or why not?

CLEA Elections - Call for Nominations

The CLEA Elections Committee is soliciting nominations of individuals to serve on the CLEA Board starting in January 2018. In addition, we are also seeking nominations for the Vice-President and Secretary positions on the Executive Committee. Nominations are due October 1, 2017.. 

All positions require a three-year commitment. We have attached a memo prepared by the CLEA Elections Committee, which sets forth the activities and responsibilities of CLEA Board members in more detail. 

Current CLEA members are invited to nominate themselves or other CLEA members as candidates for one of these positions. The committee also encourages “new clinicians” (defined as clinicians with fewer than 6 years of experience) to run for the CLEA Board. Our Bylaws create a separate election process for candidates identified as “new clinicians,” to ensure that the identified “new clinician” candidate who receives the greatest number of votes will be assured a place on the Board.

The Committee strongly encourages CLEA members to nominate individuals from groups that are currently underrepresented within the leadership of various clinical institutions, including CLEA, the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education, and the Clinical Law Review. 

The nomination process is simple. Nominate yourself or someone else by replying to this email (please do not reply-all). If you are nominating yourself, please include a paragraph or two about why you are running and a link to your faculty profile, which will be included with the elections materials to be sent later in the fall. If you are nominating another CLEA member, there is no need to include such a paragraph; the name of the individual and institution will suffice, and the Election Committee will contact the nominee for further information. If you have fewer than six years of clinical teaching experience and wish to be identified as a “new clinician” candidate, or if you want to nominate a candidate for the “new clinician” category, please indicate that as well. Although the process of nomination is easy, our Bylaws set a strict deadline for receiving nominations. All nominations must be received by October 1, 2017.

If you have questions about the CLEA Elections process, please reply to this email or contact the Chair of the Elections Committee, D’lorah Hughes, at [email protected]. 

 

Download Responsibilities of Members of the Board of Directors of CLEA