Information for Law Students

The Legal Aid Clinic offers law students the opportunity to translate classroom learning into hands-on experience practicing law in the service of social justice. The following is important information for law students who are considering enrolling in the Legal Aid Clinic.

Q. Who is eligible to register for the Legal Aid Clinic?
A. Registration for Legal Aid I & Ethics, the core Clinical course, is open to all second- and third-year Law students.

Q. How can I register for Legal Aid I and Ethics?
A. The Legal Aid Clinic holds an information session for students before registration begins each semester. The Clinic also e-mails registration information to all students. In recent years registration has been conducted by lottery through the Inside ND process. Registration procedures can vary from semester to semester, however. Students should check the Legal Aid Clinic web page and look for e-mails from the Clinic director.
> Current Semester Registration Information


Q. Must I take any pre-requisite courses before registering?
A. There are NO pre-requisites to registration for Legal Aid I & Ethics. However, the standard Law School curriculum offers a number of courses that will help to deepen and enrich the Clinical experience. For example, Trial Advocacy, Evidence, Administrative Law, Dispute Resolution, and Applied Mediation all provide useful grounding in skills and procedures. Other courses that may provide useful subject matter background for a specific section include Immigration Law, Consumer Law, Law and Psychology, Trusts and Estates, Family Law or Juvenile Law. Students considering enrollment in the Clinic consult with a Clinic faculty member for advice.

Q. What types of cases does the Clinic handle?
A. The Clinic is organized into projects that focus on different types of legal work. Students register to work in a specific project. The current projects include:

Disability Benefits Project
Economic Justice Project
Immigrant Rights Project
Mental Health Project
Tenants’ Rights Project
Wills and Trusts Project

Q. Who are the Clinic’s clients?
A. The Clinic’s clients are generally persons who are unable to pay for their own attorneys and who are experiencing legal difficulties because of poverty, discrimination, mental illness, disability, immigration status, fraud, or other forms of oppression.

Q. Does every intern represent clients?
A. Yes, representing clients is the core of the Clinical experience.

Q. What kinds of tasks do interns perform?
A. Interns are the lead attorneys for their clients and perform the full range of lawyering tasks, including interviewing and counseling their clients, investigating facts, conducting formal discovery, conducting legal research, drafting pleadings, negotiating settlements, and appearing before courts and administrative agencies. In some cases, the Legal Aid Clinic may represent non-profit organizations or engage in law reform activities that involve different types of advocacy efforts. Interns may also engage in public education activities.

Q. Does every Clinic intern get an opportunity to appear in court?
A. The Clinic cannot guarantee a court appearance for every intern. Many interns have an opportunity to appear in court or conduct an administrative hearing on behalf of a client. Legal Aid I students are also typically given an opportunity to conduct a mock motion hearing before a judge in a St. Joseph County courtroom. Whether a particular intern has a chance to conduct a hearing for a client depends on a number of factors. By their nature some cases (preparation of wills, for example) do not involve court appearances. Other cases may be settled out of court or may be continued beyond the term of an intern’s enrollment. Finally, second year students cannot appear in court during the fall semester because they have not amassed enough law school credits to qualify for a Student Practice Certificate (see below).

Q. What is a Student Practice Certificate?
A. Student Practice Certificates are issued by the Indiana Supreme Court to law students in good standing who have completed at least three semesters of school and have also completed or are concurrently enrolled in two credits of ethics classes. Such certificates entitle a student to perform all of the tasks that a licensed attorney may perform, so long as the student is closely supervised by a licensed attorney. The Clinic arranges for Certificates to be issued to all eligible enrolled students. Clinic interns who lack a Certificate may perform virtually all of the same functions as other students, with the exception of speaking in court.

Q. How much of my time will Clinic work take?
A. A clinic intern can expect to spend an average of 12-15 hours per week on required Clinical activities including course work and client representation. However, because interns are handling real cases, workload and time demands will fluctuate, depending on such variables as clients’ needs and availability and court calendars. Good time management skills are essential to success.

Q. Where are the Clinic offices?
A. The Clinic offices are located just south of campus at 725 Howard Street , about a fifteen minute walk from the law school. Students may reach the Clinic on foot, by bicycle, or by automobile.

Q. How often will I be expected to be there?
A. Interns construct their own schedules based on classes and other obligations. Interns are expected to perform most of their clinical work in the Legal Aid Clinic offices, just as they would if they were working for a private law firm.

Q. Can a student register for a second semester of internship?
A. At the end of each term, Clinic faculty invite a small number of interns to continue for a second semester with Legal Aid II. Faculty members issue such invitations entirely at their own discretion. Decisions are based on interns’ performance, aptitude and interest in the program.

Q. What kind of classroom work occurs in Legal Aid I & Ethics?
A. Legal Aid I & Ethics meets for four classroom hours per week. The classroom work focuses on core lawyering skills such as interviewing and counseling; substantive law relevant to the section’s case work; and ethics. Course work consists of lectures, assigned readings, discussions and mock exercises. The classroom component is highly participatory and interactive. Upon completion, each student receives a letter grade based on criteria published at the outset of the term.

Q. What role do the faculty members play in interns’ case work?
A. Close supervision and mentoring is a hallmark of clinical education. Clinic faculty members provide careful training and regular one-on-one supervision of interns’ case work. Supervision includes a formal, weekly meeting with the faculty member as well as daily ad hoc, informal interaction while the intern is in the Clinic offices working on cases.