One of my favorite things about law school so far has been getting involved in two student organizations that provide direct service to clients: the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) Project, and the Education Adequacy Project (EAP).
The TRO Project lets students - even in their first semester - assist victims of domestic violence in applying for civil restraining orders. After a few intensive training sessions, students staff an office right in the New Haven court house. About once a month, I spend a morning or an afternoon helping applicants fill out all of the (rather confusing!) forms and accompanying them to the clerk's office and then the judge as they await a decision on their application. While it was really scary the first few times - it's awfully hard to sit and listen to graphic stories of domestic abuse as women [generally, but sometimes men] are crying in front of you - it's also really gratifying to see that you can pretty easily help someone simply by walking them through a relatively routine process. Students can get credit for working six shifts a semester, or just volunteer for a few sessions.
This semester I've started working with the Education Adequacy Project, one of the clinical courses at the law school. To be honest, EAP was one of the big pulls for me to come to YLS, as I'm really interested in education policy issues. We serve as legal counsel for clients that are suing the State of Connecticut over the state's education funding formula, and we're currently awaiting a decision on a pre-trial motion before the CT Supreme Court. In the meantime, we've been busy preparing for trial: collecting evidence, interviewing possible witnesses, talking to experts, and building our trial strategy. Obviously, I can't go into much detail since it's all privileged attorney work...but it's awesome and amazing, and even though it's a lot of work, I'm SO glad that I got involved with the clinic.
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I am also SO glad to have had spring break! I'm really sad to be back from the Caribbean, but it's nice to have had a week to relax and forget about the details of my gCal. Now, it's back to work. And work. And work. But also some fun...law school prom is next weekend!
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2 comments:
EAP is also a huge pull for me too.. If you don't mind me asking -- about how many law students are involved and what is your time commitment per week?
Thanks!
Currently, there are 18 of us, I think...including 8 1Ls. We are supervised by a fellow (a 2008 graduate who was a clinic member), two clinical faculty members, and an additional staff member.
Time commitment is always changing...there's a 2 hour class period each week, plus an hour or two of document review, maybe an hour-long small team meeting, and then a few hours of work for a small team project. All in all, I'd say somewhere between 5-20 hours a week.
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