In the Fall 2024 semester, students enrolled in the General Practice Clinic will be working on litigation cases and advocacy projects and do so through a trauma-informed lens that takes into account the implicit bias and systemic racism inherent in the justice systems in which lawyers work. In their litigation cases, student attorneys will work in teams representing domestic violence survivors seeking orders of protection. Student attorneys will take the lead on their cases, under the supervision of Professor Miriam Marton, interviewing clients to gather underlying facts, developing the case theory and legal strategies, drafting pleadings, negotiating with opposing parties/counsel, and bringing the case to trial when necessary.

This semester, student attorneys will also be working on advocacy projects related to defending families embroiled in the child welfare system. The goals for the advocacy projects will be to establish an early intervention practice for the General Practice Clinic to improve access to justice for these families and to examine the effectiveness and the role of mandatory reporting statutory schemes in the child welfare system.

Through their work in the General Practice Clinic, students will develop lawyering skills such as interviewing, drafting, strategizing, negotiating, and client-centered representation. In addition, we will continuously examine the role of the justice system in the lives of marginalized communities, the role that individual and collective trauma plays in legal representation, the challenges of public interest lawyering, and the balance between community education and individual representation. As a result, students will also develop skills in cross-cultural lawyering by representing trauma survivors, learning the impact of nonlegal issues on legal representations, working across professions, and seeing our clients as more than just a legal problem.