Prisoners' Rights Clinic

In this intensive clinic, students will represent incarcerated people who have raised conditions of confinement and related civil rights claims in cases pending before federal appellate courts across the nation.    The clinic will allow students who may be interested civil rights litigation or who will be clerking to develop greater competency in legal writing. Through this work and the accompanying seminar, students will be exposed to issues facing incarcerated people, substantive law governing carceral institutions, and obstacles incarcerated people face when seeking to vindicate their rights in court. Prominent among those obstacles is lack of access to counsel; because some of the clinic’s clients were pro se at the trial level and would proceed so on appeal without our assistance, casework will fill an important need.

Students will review the records in their assigned cases, engage in legal research, and prepare multiple drafts of their briefs based on feedback from the instructors, class discussion, and case rounds. Students will work in teams of three or four.

Whenever possible, students will communicate with their clients in writing and through telephone calls, consulting with them about the issues and claims to be raised and advising them of progress on their cases. Through these attorney-client relationships, students will have the opportunity to learn about their clients’ experiences of incarceration and will be able to incorporate their clients’ thoughts into their representation.

The clinic seminar will be taught, and the case work supervised, by Prof. Aaron Littman and co-instructors who practice in this area.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

This is an intensive clinic, and the workload will be heavy. You will need to spend at least 15 hours per week, and perhaps significantly more time, on your casework. Enrolling is a commitment; please do so only if you are able to make the clinic your priority.
Students are not permitted to drop this clinic at any time after enrolling, absent instructor permission to be granted only in extraordinary circumstances.

Most cases will involve merits briefing in appellate cases, but other projects (including petitions for rehearing en banc or certiorari or amicus briefing) are possible. The cases handled in the clinic will offer students substantive drafting experience and, generally, the chance to work with currently or formerly incarcerated individuals. Case assignments will take into account student preferences but will be at the discretion of the instructors. Some students may not receive their first-choice assignments.

At the discretion of the instructors and in consultation with clients, some students may have the opportunity to participate in oral argument either during their enrollment or thereafter. Many of the students who enroll in the clinic will not have the opportunity to deliver an oral argument.