Criminal Defense Clinic
In order to assure that each student will benefit from the collective experiences of the group, one two-hour class session each week will be devoted to group discussions of the active cases that the clinic is currently handling. Of course, the bulk of the direct supervision of each case will take place in individual meetings between the student assigned to the case and the faculty member.
Another two-hour class session each week will be devoted to the simulation component of the clinic, in which the students will handle each important stage of a criminal matter through the use of assigned problems. To the extent possible, these problems will be drawn from actual cases that the clinic is currently handling and will be timed in such a way that they will help serve as preparation for an actual activity.
These simulated activities should provide an excellent supplement to the actual experiences that the representation component will provide, and should also be useful in filling in gaps that may be left uncovered by that component. Each student will be assured an experience with each significant element of criminal practice in the simulation component of the course. Some of what the students will do in this portion of the class will be videotaped, and those tapes will be used for student self-critique as well as for faculty critique.
Successful completion of this clinical experience will earn six (6) semester hours of academic credit.
Community Justice and Legal Assistance Clinic Classes meet twice weekly for two hours. One class each week will be devoted primarily to developing lawyering skills and understanding the lawyer’s role; the other will focus more heavily on substantive, policy and ethical issues.
Some classes will be enriched by the presence of graduate students and professionals from other disciplines. Some will utilize student cases or projects as the basis for discussion. Teaching methods include simulation, problem solving exercises, discussion, panel presentations and site visits.
Successful completion of this clinical experience will earn six (6) semester hours of academic credit.
Mediation Clinic Classes meet twice weekly for two hours. One class each week will address theoretical issues, such as the nature and sources of human conflict and methods to resolve, manage, and prevent disputes, as well as advanced training in communication facilitation techniques, reflective methods of conducting mediation sessions, dealing with challenges to maintaining neutrality, drafting agreements to mediate and agreements resolving mediated conflicts, and effective representation of clients in mediation.
The second of the weekly sessions will be devoted to discussing the work of the clinic, including debriefing of mediated cases and other projects undertaken by clinic students. These classroom discussions will stress the ethical issues facing mediators and the lawyers representing parties in the mediation.
Students will be awarded six (6) semester hours of academic credit upon the successful completion of the course.
