2010 Immigration Law Clinic of the Year: UC Davis Immigration Law Clinic

Call me a homer but I pick the UC Davis Immigration Law Clinic as the 2010 Immigration Law Clinic of the Year.  The Immigration Law Clinic provides legal representation to indigent noncitizens in removal proceedings before U.S. immigration courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and federal courts, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Clinic serves low-income immigrant communities, offering education and legal services to low-income immigrants facing deportation while enabling students to gain practical, real-world experience.  Students take on all major aspects of litigation, including interviewing clients and witnesses, preparing legal briefs, drafting pleadings and motions, and arguing complex legal issues. Clinic students regularly conduct naturalization and other legal workshops in the community, engage in broader advocacy projects related to the detention & deportation of immigrants, and provide know your rights presentations in local ICE detention centers. Responding to the increased collaboration between criminal and immigration enforcement agencies, the UC Davis Immigration Law Clinic has also been at the forefront of indigent detention and deportation defense.

 
Professor Leticia Saucedo, a respected immigration law scholar, is director of Clinical Legal Education and oversees the Immigration Law Clinic.

 
Professor Amagda Pérez (a UC Davis law graduate), an expert in deportation defense, directs the clinic.  Professors Holly Cooper (another UC Davis law graduate) and Raha Jorjani, experts in immigrant detention who will speak on programs at the Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting in San Francisco next week, also teach in the Clinic.

This year, the Clinic was ably assisted by Sutro Fellow Grisel Ruiz, a graduate of the University of Chicago law school.

KJ