Clinical Law Prof Blog

CLEA Outstanding Student Award: Florida's Taylor Oliver and Jessica Terkovich

CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student or Team Award: Taylor Oliver in Florida’s veterans and service members legal clinic:

The University of Florida Levin College of Law is delighted to announce that Taylor Oliver ‘22 is the recipient of the CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student Award. As a member of the Veterans and Service members Legal Clinic, Taylor drafted an outstanding conference memo. In doing this work, she independently identified novel legal issues, performed legal research about those issues, and adeptly tackled the issues. The memo was for a veteran’s appeal for disability compensation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. Taylor interviewed the client to better understand the appellate record and the client’s interactions with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. This client interview was particularly challenging because the client’s disabilities made it difficult for him to share his story. Therefore, his spouse participated in the conference call as well, and Taylor adapted well, eliciting key information and building rapport. Taylor helped review the 1,000 page appellate record to evaluate whether it was complete. She created a document log of key evidence and VA decisions in the appellate record and researched scientific information, federal statutes, regulations, and case law relevant to the issues on appeal and conducted a substantive record review to highlight record evidence supporting the veteran’s arguments. Taylor drafted an organized, insightful, and well written conference memo summarizing the issues for the staffing conference between the attorneys for the VA Office of General Counsel, the Central Legal Staff of the Court, and our team representing the veteran. The memo served as a summary of arguments to be made in the appellate brief. The excellent conference memo convinced the VA attorney to offer a remand to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, the optimum result for the veteran. Plus, both the VA attorney and the attorney from the Court commented that the memo was excellent and made their jobs easy.

CLEA Outstanding Externship Student Award: Jessica Terkovich:

Jessica Terkovich ’22 earned the CLEA Outstanding Externship Student Award for her outstanding work on a capital case as part of her externship with the 4th Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office Conviction Integrity Review Unit. Jess worked tirelessly to investigate a claim of factual innocence, including traveling to Jacksonville to review boxes of trial documents and evidence, to interview potential witnesses, and to examine the crime scene for investigative leads. Jess explored legal defenses and claims as well as factual anomalies in her effort to discover whether this incarcerated individual was wrongfully convicted. She encountered numerous challenges, including those from the incarcerated individual's own appellate team. Jess handled each roadblock with the skill and poise of a veteran lawyer and consistently impressed her supervisors with her communication skills and her determination to achieve justice. As part of a subsequent externship with the Norfolk Commonwealth Attorney’s Office, Jess ably handled a number of felony cases, notably assisting with a tragic case involving the accidental shooting of a young child. Her supervising attorney wrote of her many strengths, that she “takes great initiative in seeking out work and becoming involved in a variety of cases. She is a strong writer, conducts thorough research, and communicates well with attorneys. Given a legal question, she is consistently able to locate relevant cases and statutory authority, communicate her findings clearly, and craft arguments based on them.” UF Law is very pleased to honor Jess with this award!

CLEA Outstanding Student Award (plus one more): UDC's Nathan Jones, Jennifer Araujo, Francesca Bryce, Sarah Buskirk, Azuree Bowman, and Sophia Balemian-Spencer

In May 2022, UDC David A. Clarke School of Law presented the following awards to our graduating students.

The CLEA Outstanding Externship Student Award for demonstrating excellence in externship fieldwork and thoughtful, self-reflective participation in the externship seminar was presented to Nathan Jones (“Nate”).  Nate was a student in UDC Law’s evening program and the Washington Post’s first Freedom of Information Act Director. Nate is a recognized international expert on the 1983 Able Archer nuclear war scare and has quite literally written the book on that incident. As an extern, Nate worked with the National Security Archives, a nonprofit research institution which uses the Freedom of Information Act to force the government to release previously secret, historically important public records. Nate had a fantastic learning experience conducting research and crafting briefs on ongoing FOIA issues, including Civil Rights cold cases and dangerous brushes with nuclear war. Nate’s Externship experience confirmed to him that he wants to use the skills he learned at UDC Law to litigate Freedom of Information Act lawsuits in the future. Professor John Brittain taught the externship seminar and Spring 2022 and Assistant Director for the Office of Career and Professional Development, Heather Molina will teach it in Summer 2022.

 

The CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student Award for excellence in clinic fieldwork and thoughtful, self-reflective participation in the Clinical Program was presented to Jennifer Araujo.   Participating in the General Practice (GPC) and Immigration and Human Rights  (IHRC) clinics, Jennifer represented real clients and sharpened her written and oral advocacy skills. Under the supervision of Professors Tianna Gibbs and Andy Budzinski, Jennifer worked on discovery and argued remotely before D.C. Superior Court. Jennifer also worked with a woman who had difficulty obtaining counsel in the past due to economic and language barriers as part of the Access to Justice Advice and Brief Services Project. Jennifer speaks in this video about her experience as a student in the first semester of the 10-credit evening Clinic in Fall 2022. Under Associate Dean Lindsay M. Harris in the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, Jennifer represented a young man afraid to return to his home country because of violence against LGBTQ individuals. Jennifer completed the asylum application, drafted his declaration, and researched and wrote the legal brief. Although heart-breaking at times and painful for the client, it was a rewarding moment for her when he expressed sincere gratitude after reading his statement. Following graduation, Jennifer will work at Blake Immigration in Alexandria, VA.

  

Finally, this year UDC Law also created an inaugural Outstanding Clinical Team Award for the clinical team that displayed excellence in clinical fieldwork collaboration. Our clinical faculty selected Francesca Bryce, Sarah Buskirk, Azuree Bowman, and Sophia Balemian-Spencer as the recipients of the 2022 Inaugural Outstanding Clinical Team Award. According to Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project (DV LEAP), working under the supervision of Professor Marcy Karin, this outstanding team of student legislative lawyers demonstrated “energy, skills, creativity and deep commitment to addressing the critical impacts of climate change on [gender-based violence] survivors.” As “vital partners,” they advocated for local, national, and international stakeholders to acknowledge climate justice for survivors. Francesca Bryce pitched the White House Gender Policy Council to address these needs in the U.S. National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence. Azuree Bowman amplified the unique experiences of Indigenous survivors. Sarah Buskirk encouraged the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women to address related stressors that imperil survivors' health and safety. With research support from Sophia Balemian-Spencer, their work helped others realize that the law must do something about this overlooked reality. 

UDC Law is proud of each of our 2022 graduates. All students graduating from our day program took at least two seven-credit clinics and all students graduating from our evening program took at least one ten-credit clinic to graduate. With this, they are equipped to Practice Law, Promote Justice, and Change Lives!

CLEA Outstanding Student Award: Texas A&M's Meghan Collier

CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student Award:  Texas A&M School of Law is nominating Meghan Collier for the CLEA Outstanding Clinic Student Award for her work with the Immigrant Rights Clinic. Meghan enrolled in the clinic in the spring semester of her 2L year and continued to work in the clinic for two more semesters. During her time in the clinic, she played a crucial role in providing individual representation to women subjected to medical abuses at the Irwin County Detention Center, including screening them for humanitarian visas. She also represented one of the women in a motion to reopen that was filed with the BIA, as well as in her Eleventh Circuit appeal. She is currently preparing one of the women to testify before the U.S. Senate about her experience. Meghan’s crucial role in this project required collaboration with multiple partners and helped Texas A&M School of Law share in the 2021 Clinical Legal Education Association Award for Excellence in a Public Interest Case or Project.

Additionally, Meghan helped other individuals get released from detention during COVID-19 by filing requests for release under an injunction in a district court case called Fraihat. She also wrote an incredible appellate brief for a detained youth who had been granted SIJS but was still being deported. The powerful appeal brief, along with a habeas petition, helped secure his release from detention. In Fall 2021, Meghan won an asylum case in immigration court for an Egyptian citizen who had been tortured by the police for political reasons. This was a complex case that required extensive preparation of both the client and a medical expert.

Meghan has also handled cases referred to the Immigrant Rights Clinic by our Medical Legal Partnership with Cook Children’s Hospital. She is currently working on a request for medical deferred action for the parents of a child with severe disabilities who has required frequent hospitalization. The application she prepared will be used as a model by other students as we continue to develop our partnership with the hospital and incorporate more interdisciplinary approach to clinical work.

Not only is Meghan an exceptional advocate herself, but she been a wonderful mentor to other students in the clinic. For example, as an advanced student, she helped coach three other students who worked on a team with her to prepare the Egyptian asylum case. She also mentored two other students working with the women who had been detained at Irwin County. . . .

Meghan always had thoughtful comments to share with the class and was able to reflect on her experiences. She was also actively engaged when other students discussed their cases in rounds, offering suggestions and feedback. Meghan’s work has not only contributed to the community in North Texas, but to the national community by challenging fundamental problems with immigration detention and highlighting the need for more humanitarian approaches.

 

CLEA Outstanding Student Award: Ohio Northern's Tyler Rotstein

CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student Award: Tyler Rotstein in Ohio Northern University's Legal Clinic 

Tyler is the ideal advocate and ambassador for the ONU Legal clinic. Tyler has been looking forward to attending clinic and being a legal intern since his first year at law school. Prior to joining clinic, Tyler had already gained a ton of experience at an Indiana law firm where he plans to practice family law after graduation. Despite this prior experience, Tyler specifically told us that he still wanted to come to clinic because he was committed to learning and getting as many practical experiences as possible while in law school. And he fully embraced this opportunity by taking 6 credit hours both fall and spring semester of his third year of law school. Our clinic and clients have tremendously benefited from Tyler this past year. Tyler is always pushing himself to be a better law student and attorney and genuinely welcomes the feedback and reflective nature of the clinical education experience. Tyler has had some very challenging clients and cases this past year, but he has excellently represented his clients and has gone above and beyond for us and his clients, even staying after the end of the semester or coming in before the start of the semester to work on cases. On top of all of this, Tyler is sincere, enthusiastic, and a constant professional. He has been a joy to work with at the Clinic and will be a wonderful addition to the legal profession.

CLEA Outstanding Student Award: UVA's Katie Kramer

CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student Award: Katie Kramer in the University of Virginia's Health and Disability Law Clinic. 

Katie Kramer is the kind of law student who makes her supervisors into better lawyers. To every assignment and case, Katie brings a remarkable attention to detail, deep curiosity about the law, and ferocious intelligence, resulting in outstanding advocacy on behalf of clients. Katie also brings a humanity and humility to her work, which allows her to build trust with clients and coworkers alike. It is therefore with the utmost enthusiasm that we nominate Katie Kramer for the CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student Award. Throughout her year as a student in the University of Virginia’s Health & Disability Law Clinic, Katie provided direct representation to more than five individual clients on legal matters ranging from Medicaid appeals to medical debt relief to social security overpayment appeals. She also performed critical legal research and prepared memoranda on complex advocacy campaigns to redress national origin discrimination in Medicaid enrollment processes, enforce due process protections for individuals facing unlawful nursing home discharges, and improve medical debt billing and collections practices for low-income patients. Katie performed each assignment superbly. She is the kind of student who makes our job so much easier and so much more enjoyable, and who elevates the work of others by modeling such impressive diligence, curiosity, and compassion. Likewise, Katie has elevated our own work. She has reminded us of the importance of knowing an issue inside and out, of paying unflinching attention to detail, and of casting aside your own assumptions about an issue. On this basis, the UVA clinic faculty voted for Katie to receive this award.

CLEA Outstanding Student Award: SMU's Amy Nguyen

CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student or Team Award:  Amy Nguyen of the SMU Tax Clinic: 

The work of Amy Nguyen, a 2L in SMU Law's Tax Clinic, stood out, even when compared to the 3L and LLM students around her.

Amy’s work was excellent overall, but her work on one particular case stands out. She represented a taxpayer who had experienced abuse at the hands of her spouse. As a general rule, under the Internal Revenue Code, spouses are considered jointly and severally liable for tax liability. However, an exception exists where a taxpayer can establish the requirements for relief as a so-called “innocent spouse.”

In a previous semester, a student had sought innocent spouse relief for this taxpayer through an administrative process with the IRS. That request was rejected. Amy filed a case with the Tax Court seeking review of the administrative denial. She was successful in convincing the IRS attorney that the taxpayer was in fact entitled to the relief. The IRS Office of the Chief Counsel conceded the case.

BUT, the story does not end there. The Internal Revenue Code authorizes a non-petitioning spouse to intervene in cases involving a request for innocent spouse relief. Sure enough, the spouse intervened, arguing that because the divorce decree allocated 50/50 liability, the Tax Court should deny his ex-wife’s request. It was almost as if he was attempting to exert control over her one last time.

Amy prepared a superb brief responding to the husband’s argument, and ultimately, the Tax Court sided with her client, affirming the agreement with the IRS, and overruling the husband’s objection.

Additionally, here’s what Amy had to say upon learning that she had received the award: “Tax Clinic was the highlight of my year as I found the experience of actually practicing law to be so enriching and enlightening. Professor Mitchell played a huge role in teaching me how to be an advocate for my clients and gave me opportunities to go to the Tax Court on several occasions, which allowed me the chance to even meet with Federal Tax Judges and speak to them in chambers. My efforts and successes are thanks to the great environment I had everyday coming into Clinic.”

CLEA Outstanding Student Award: UIC's Jacqueline Romo

CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student or Team Award: Jacqueline Romo in the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law's Community Enterprise & Solidarity Economy Clinic: 

Jackie was a student in the Community Enterprise & Solidarity Economy Clinic in spring 2022. The clinic's work is centered around direct transactional representation of community-based business clients and non-profit organizations. Jackie consistently went above and beyond for her clients and exemplified the best of client-centered lawyering with a strong ability to solve complex issues. She excelled at client communication and leveraged her experiences and emotional intelligence to advance her clients’ goals. She often would identify creative (outside of the box) solutions and consistently collaborate with clients improve outcomes and clinic work product, effectively counseling clients on complex legal issues. Jackie was also a wonderful collaborator with her classmates and clinic partner. Throughout the semester, her seminar contributions raised important points and benefited her classmates, often pointing out the systems that underlie society and legal processes. She exhibited excellent communication skills and was highly dedicated to her client work. She was able to juggle the demands of law school, her work in the clinic, extracurricular activities, and her personal and family obligations. In sum, Jackie exemplified the qualities that a future attorney should possess through her clinic work by prioritizing clients’ needs, adapting to new client information, creative lawyering, and excellent collaboration.

CLEA Outstanding Student Award: Brooklyn's Matthew Boyd

CLEA Outstanding Externship Student Award: Matthew Boyd

This year’s recipient of Brooklyn Law School’s Outstanding Externship Student Award is Matthew Boyd ‘22. While at BLS, Matt completed three semesters of externship work on behalf of three different public interest field placements—the HIV Law Project, the Legal Aid Society Homeless Rights Project, and the National Center for Law & Economic Justice. These all were demanding, intense, high-volume environments where Matt made meaningful contributions to the mission. Matt's labors covered the landscape of social justice advocacy, including direct client services, impact litigation, policy analysis, and field research. His field supervisors describe him as industrious, high-performing, insightful, and able contextualize his work within broader societal and legal system concerns. They uniformly remarked on Matt’s maturity and effectiveness, especially when interacting with distressed clients and in other challenging circumstances. He also excelled in the externship program’s corequisite seminars and faculty tutorials. As an emissary to the legal profession, he represented the best of Brooklyn Law School, and we are proud to honor him with this award.

CLEA Outstanding Student Award: Chapman Fowler's Jocelyn Perez and Jordan Law

CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student Award: The Fowler School of Law CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student is Jocelyn Perez:

Jocelyn Perez stood out in the Spring 2021 Family Protection Clinic for her work ethic, her dedication to children and families, and her legal analysis and skills. She raised the professionalism of each team, and she collaborated exceptionally well with clients, other students, faculty, and other professionals. She consistently exceeded deadline expectations, and her memoranda were on-point, well-written, and thorough. She took responsibility and initiative on cases and just as admirably, consulted with faculty as circumstances necessitated. Ms. Perez quickly grasped the concepts of case theory and case planning, allowing her to very effectively provide legal advice to clients. She was clear in her explanations, and she engaged in trauma-informed client-interaction techniques – always resulting in the client feeling heard and respected. One of her clients, in particular, emailed faculty multiple times after the hearing concluded to express her appreciation for Ms. Perez’ legal advice and assistance. Ms. Perez was the ideal clinic student. She began the course with impressive experience, integrated that which she learned in class, and put out a product that incorporated both effectively.

 

CLEA Outstanding Externship Student Award: The FSOL CLEA Outstanding Externship Student is Jordan Law:

Last semester Jordan Law worked at the U.S. International Fund for Animal Welfare. She has previously worked at the Public Law Center and the Inclusive Education Project. She is dedicated to working in public interest law and is very interested in Animal Welfare work in particular. Her work for the U.S. International Fund for Animal Welfare has included drafting a detailed and well-researched persuasive memorandum to the Lead Biologist responsible for Arkansas Game and Fish Regulation. She also participated in a meeting with a U.S. Senator's staff member who was somewhat dismissive of Jordan's supervising attorney and the issues they discussed. Jordan used this experience as a learning opportunity.

CLEA Outstanding Student Awards: Maryland's Fasika Delessa

CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student or Team Award: The University of Maryland Carey School of Law is thrilled to announce that Fasika Delessa, a student in the Low Income Tax Clinic, received the 2022 CLEA student award. Over the course of her 2 semesters in the clinic, Ms. Delessa helped negotiate Currently Non-Collectible status for a 61-year-old client, who is a caregiver for her mother who has dementia, filed an amended return for a barber whose income was decimated by COVID-19 that lowered his tax bill from $37,000 to $4000 and negotiated restoration of a nursing license for a client whose license was being withheld for non-payment of taxes. 
 

CLEA Outstanding Student Awards: Loyola New Orleans's Rebecca Desta and Brandan Bonds

CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student or Team Award: Rebecca Desta, Best Clinic Student (Youth Justice Section) Supervising Clinic Faculty Member: Clinic Professor Hector Linares

During the year she spent as a student practitioner with the Youth Justice section of the Law Clinic, Rebecca represented clients in both special education advocacy and delinquency proceedings. She filed a request for a due process hearing on behalf of a student with disabilities who had been denied special education services for years despite reading at a third-grade level as a junior in high school. Rebecca successfully obtained eligibility for the student and negotiated a settlement agreement for compensatory education and services to help her client make up for lost time. Rebecca also worked incredibly hard for another client facing multiple felony petitions in juvenile court. She helped the youth obtain release from detention and get back into school. Rebecca also performed admirably at trial conducting the opening, closing, and multiple cross examinations. She was ultimately able to secure a disposition of probation on a single adjudicated offense for her client.

CLEA Outstanding Externship Student Award: Brandan Bonds, Best Extern (Orleans DA Office of Civil Rights) Externship Program Supervisor: Clinic Professor Davida Finger

Brandan served as the inaugural extern at the Orleans DA Office of Civil Rights (OCR). He worked on police misconduct cases and with a team of attorneys, reviewed past cases on policing and sentencing issues. His work was outstanding and he accepted a job with OCR for Fall 2022.

CLEA Outstanding Student Awards: Pepperdine Caruso's Michael Briggs, Kevin Kilroy, and Felicia Forman

CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student or Team Award: Michael Briggs (3L) and Kevin Kilroy (2L) for the Outstanding Clinic Team Award from the Restoration and Justice Clinic at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law.

All semester, Michael and Kevin demonstrated excellence in their representation of their transgender, human trafficking client. They established rapport early and communicated regularly with their client, and gleaned additional information through trauma-informed interviewing and counseling to better portray their client's criminal convictions as result of sex trafficking. In the five years the clinic has represented this client, we had not previously learned this information. To do this, they prepared extensively, revised and reflected on their approach, and also shared their vulnerabilities with their client; in fact, Kevin shared her own coming out story with their client.

Kevin and Michael also edited the client's declaration and pleadings with more trans-inclusive language. In today's transphobic climate, the care and concern they took to humanize their client not only honors her but also serves to educate stakeholders and decision makers who will read these pleadings. Their contribution to the clinic for future students, as well as the broader community at Pepperdine and the legal community combatting sex trafficking in Los Angeles cannot be overstated.

Their collaboration was excellent, and Kevin described it like this in her journal reflections: "We kept an open line of communication throughout the past few months, also met to strategize before asking to meet with a client or to plan what we would discuss when on the phone with her. We shared expectations for ourselves and motivated each other to do our best. There was never a moment where we did not know what the other was working on, or if they were able to accomplish a given assignment. The communication also fostered great trust between each other."

Michael and Kevin embody the intent and spirit this award seeks to honor.

CLEA Outstanding Externship Student Award: Felicia Forman

During her 2L year, Felicia has excelled in her work with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office Sex Crimes Division. Her work supervisor noted that, "Felicia is committed to helping victims of sexual abuse become survivors. She has incredible drive, an outstanding work ethic and she takes the initiative to find ways to help all of the attorneys here at Stuart House. Felicia will be an outstanding lawyer and our Deputy In Charge continues to tell her that having her as a law clerk is like having another Deputy District Attorney in the office. I am looking forward to Felicia working with us again next semester."

Spring 2022 CLEA Newsletter

Via Prof. Ron Hochbaum, able editor, CLEA has published its Spring 2022 Newsletter this week. 

Download the CLEA Spring 2022 Newsletter here.

Announcing the Recipients of the 2022 CLEA Awards

Via Prof. Jane Stoever and the Committee: 

The CLEA Awards Committee is thrilled to announce that Ian Weinstein (Professor of Law at Fordham Law School) and Sheila Bedi (Clinical Law Professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law) are recipients of the CLEA Award for Outstanding Advocate for Clinical Teachers.  

 

CLEA is equally thrilled to announce that the University of Maine School of Law’s Refugee and Human Rights Clinic and Cornell Law School’s Death Penalty Program are recipients of the CLEA Award for Excellence in a Public Interest Case or Project, and an Honorable Mention is being awarded to the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative’s Ambassadors for Racial Justice Program.  

 

The 2022 CLEA Awards will be presented at the AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education on Thursday, May 12, 5:15-6:15 pm Eastern. We look forward to celebrating the remarkable award recipients and our clinical community! 

 

Outstanding Advocate for Clinical Teachers: Ian Weinstein 

 

CLEA’s Outstanding Advocate for Clinical Teaching Award recognizes those who have served as a voice for clinical teachers and contributed to the advancement of clinical legal education. Ian Weinstein, Professor of Law at Fordham Law School, has enthusiastically advocated for clinics since he was a clinic student and fellow at New York University and Georgetown. At Fordham, he helped Jim Cohen and others build a robust program under the visionary leadership of then Dean John Feerick. For more than 35 years, he has been devoted to his students, has fought passionately for his clients, and has stood shoulder to shoulder with his colleagues to advance our work.  

 

Long a leader at Fordham, in 2009 Ian joined the CLEA Executive Committee and worked with Claudia Angelos, Kate Kruse, Robert Kuehn and many others to oppose the weakening of key rules supporting clinical faculty and to support the expansion of experiential education. Clinical legal education needed a defense lawyer on the team, and he stepped up.     

 

Ian is also a co-convenor of the Stephen Ellmann Clinical Theory Workshop series with Deborah Archer, Donna Lee, and Richard Marsico. They continue Steve’s commitment to supporting clinical scholarship and fostering community. Ian’s scholarship includes work on client counseling and clinical pedagogy as well as criminal law and access to justice. Starting from the experiences of clients and students, he foregrounds a central aspiration of clinical legal education – the pursuit of social justice by intentional lawyering. Although he may play the contrarian and cynic, Ian’s unabashed faith in his students, his colleagues, and the clinical method is contagious.

 

Outstanding Advocate for Clinical Teachers: Sheila Bedi 

 

Sheila Bedi, Clinical Law Professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, is the founder of the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic, which concentrates on developing and executing legal strategies that target racism and violence in our criminal justice systems. Her work focuses on ensuring that federal litigation strategies are responsive to and driven by the communities most affected by over-policing, mass imprisonment, and other forms of repression and social control.  

 

Sheila’s work founding the Boyd-Barnett Fellowship Program, a first-of-its-kind program that allows organizers to take classes with law students, has created a platform for students to learn about how clinics can help build power in local communities. Sheila models client-centered movement lawyering as she works hard to reimagine and further clinical education and make clinics relevant to and responsive to the needs of Chicago’s Black and brown communities. 

 

Sheila regularly delivers presentations about her innovative approach to legal education, advancing the role of clinicians and clinical education, including at law schools in Chicago and at clinical and other conferences. She also unites litigators and clinicians to address prisoners’ rights. She is a deeply committed mentor to younger clinicians and clinicians-to-be, particularly women of color. Sheila’s scholarship also reflects her values and her work; she is a co-author of the only casebook on the Law of Incarceration and has published in multiple journals.  

 

Congratulations, Sheila and Ian! 

 

Excellence in a Public Interest Case or Project: University of Maine School of Law’s Refugee and Human Rights Clinic 

 

The University of Maine School of Law’s Refugee and Human Rights Clinic (RHRC) undertook a multi-year, multi-faceted project investigating the problematic practices of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s Boston Asylum Office (BAO), as described in the project report: Lives in Limbo: How the Boston Asylum Office Fails Asylum Seekers. RHRC students, working under the supervision of RHRC Founder and Director Professor Anna Welch and her colleague Adjunct Professor Erica Schair-Cardona, drafted the Report in collaboration with project partners ACLU of Maine, Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, and Dr. Basileus Zeno of Amherst College.

 

The BAO has a stunningly low approval rate for affirmative asylum petitions. Denials at the BAO delay the resolution of meritorious petitions by several years, causing further trauma to asylum seekers and requiring their family members abroad to remain in danger. The RHRC’s BAO project included litigation in U.S. District Court to compel government production of documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act request and a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative investigation into the BAO’s practices and policies.  

 

The Report, which received local and national media coverage (including Human Rights First), details findings from analysis of documents and data received as a result of the FOIA lawsuit, as well as hours of student interviews with asylees, asylum seekers, former asylum officers, and immigration attorneys. It exposed several systemic problems with adjudication of affirmative asylum applications across the country, including bias, a culture of distrust toward asylum seekers, and violations of their due process rights.  

 

Excellence in a Public Interest Case or Project: Cornell School of Law’s Death Penalty Program 

 

The award to Cornell School of Law’s Death Penalty Program honors the work of the Capital Punishment Clinic, the International Human Rights Clinic, the Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, and the Death Penalty Project, representing the efforts of Professors Sandra Babcock, John Blume, Sheri Johnson, and Keir Weyble, and generations of their students, alumni, community partners, and clients. The faculty have collectively devoted more than 100 years to the defense of people facing the death penalty, leveraging law school and university resources to provide enduring support to individual clients and to the capital punishment abolition movement in the United States and around the world. They have worked not only to overturn convictions and death sentences of individual clients, but also to assist and train capital defense attorneys in dozens of countries, conduct groundbreaking empirical research and scholarship, and promote ever-higher standards of defense practice both in the United States and abroad. Countless alumni have gone on to work in criminal defense or in the capital punishment field as a result of their clinic experience, and many continue to collaborate with the faculty and current students. 

 

Honorable Mention: Georgetown Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative’s Ambassadors for Racial Justice Program 

 

Through the Ambassadors for Racial Justice program, co-founded by the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Clinic and The Gault Center (formerly the National Juvenile Defender Center), youth defenders across the country receive the resources and training they need to battle racial injustice. In response to the tremendous racial disparities they have witnessed during the Clinic’s many decades of work, faculty, staff, and students began to incorporate data and research on implicit racial bias and the traumatic effects of policing on youth of color into their legal arguments and written pleadings. Ambassadors for Racial Justice was conceived as a way to extend the impact of the Clinic’s racial justice advocacy beyond the walls of the law school. 

 

During the year-long program, an annual cohort of ten Ambassadors gathers for weekend-long retreats and monthly webinars covering topics such as incorporating data in advocacy, strategies to end the criminalization of normal adolescent behavior, and probation reform. Additionally, each Ambassador develops a capstone project aimed at legislative advocacy, training, coalition building, litigation strategy, or community education in their state. 

 

Now in the program’s third year, the Ambassadors spread across 19 states and advance justice for youth of color by serving as mentors to other defenders and sharing motions through Defend Racial Justice for Youth: A Toolkit for Defenders. In the words of one Ambassador, the program equips defenders to “fight a system that thrives on the insidious corroding thread of dehumanizing and caging children of color,” and “disrupt everything… that says …our kids’ lives don’t matter.” 

 

We are inspired by our award recipients and look forward to celebrating our clinical community on May 12th. 

The CLEA Awards Committee 

Anju Gupta  

D’lorah Hughes  

Tameka Lester 

Serge Martinez (co-chair)  

Esther Park  

Thiadora Pina   

Jane Stoever (co-chair)