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 Legal Aid I & Ethics.

Q. Who is eligible to register for the Legal Aid Clinic?
A. All third-year law students are eligible to register. Second-year students are eligible to register for clinical courses in their spring semester only. Second-year students are not eligible during the fall semester because the Indiana Supreme Court requires students to have completed three semesters of law school before obtaining a student practice certificate.

Q. How can I register for clinical courses?
A. Registration is by online application. 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. Details can be found by clicking here: Current Semester Registration Information

Q. Must I take any pre-requisite courses before registering?
A. There are no pre-requisites for students in the Class of 2012. For members of the Class of 2013, Professional Responsibility will be a pre-requisite or co-requisite for enrollment in Legal Aid I & Ethics. The reason for this requirement is that the Indiana Supreme Court requires all students obtaining a student practice certificate to have completed, or to be concurrently enrolled in, courses offering at least two credits of ethics instruction. Students considering enrollment in the Clinic may consult with a Clinic faculty member for advice on other courses that may provide helpful background.

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:

Community Development Project
Economic Justice Project
Mental Health Project
Tenants’ Rights/ Disability Benefits Project

Q. Who are the Clinic’s clients?
A. The Clinic serves both individuals and not-for-profit organizations The Clinic’s individual clients are generally persons who are unable to pay for their own attorneys and who are experiencing legal difficulties because of marginalizing circumstances such as poverty, discrimination, mental illness, disability, immigration status, or fraud.

Q. Does every intern represent clients?
A. Yes, representing clients is the core of the Clinical experience. Students may also occasionally conduct mediations or mortgage facilitations. In such matters they do not technically “represent” clients, but they work directly and intensively with litigants to resolve real cases referred by local judges.

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 and transactional documents, negotiating transactions and settlements, and appearing before courts and administrative agencies. 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 in a litigation section. Many interns have an opportunity to appear in court or to conduct an administrative hearing on behalf of a client. Students in litigation sections of Legal Aid I & Ethics are also 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. For example, some cases may be settled out of court or may be continued beyond the term of an intern’s enrollment.

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 a certificates entitles 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 enrolled students.

Q. How much of my time will Clinic work take?
A. A clinic intern can expect to spend an average of 15 or more hours per week on required Clinical activities during the first eight weeks of the semester, including course work and client representation, and then 8-10 hours per week on average during the final weeks of the semester. The course work, including five hours of class time per week, is front-loaded into the first eight weeks of the semester. Because interns are handling real cases, workload and time demands will fluctuate, depending on such variables as clients’ needs and availability and court calendars. Interns can expect to have some weeks that will exceed the averages stated above as they approach deadlines in a case such as hearings or deadlines for filing briefs or motions. Interns must have schedules that allow for such fluctuation. 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 members 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 has a substantial classroom component which averages about five hours per week during the first eight weeks of each semester. 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.

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 frequent ad hoc, informal interaction while the intern is in the Clinic offices working on cases.