Law Offices:
News & announcements for the week of
January 7, 2002

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ORIENTATION MEETING
SPRING 2002 IN-HOUSE CLINICS

Dear Student:

Welcome to the Law Offices' In-House Clinic Program at Chicago-Kent College of Law. This semester you will learn how to practice law under the close supervision of a faculty attorney - an experience that is available only in the law school's in-house clinical programs.

An orientation meeting will be held on Monday, January 14th at 3:00 p.m. The room will be announced later. We will also post information regarding the first meeting on the Law Offices' 6th Floor Bulletin Board. Attendance at this meeting is mandatory for all beginning students in all of the In-House Law Offices programs.

Continuing students should contact their supervising attorney and pick up a copy of the In-House Clinic Handbook from the Receptionist in Room 600 on the morning of Monday, January 14th. Beginning students will receive their Handbook at the orientation meeting. You will meet with your supervising attorney immediately thereafter. Room assignments for those meetings will be announced during the orientation meeting and will be posted the morning of January 14 on the Law Offices' Bulletin Board oustide Suite 600.

For Criminal Clinic students, please complete the MCC form (enclosed with your Welcome Letter or available at the receptionist's desk, Room 600) and return it to the receptionist, if you have not already done so. This needs to be done before the spring session begins.

We are looking forward to working with all of you.

Very truly yours,

Gary S. Laser

 


LADR!
LITIGATION AND ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROGRAM


First-year day division and second-year evening division students are eligible to apply for the LADR program. The day division students who are accepted to LADR begin the certificate program in their 3rd semester of law school. The evening division students who are accepted to LADR begin the certificate program in their 4th or 5th semester in law school.

Becoming a lawyer takes more than sitting through three years of law school lectures. It involves more than learning how to cross-examine hostile witnesses, write persuasive briefs, and talk to clients. Reading about subjects such as legal ethics or law practice management is not the same as learning about them from experience.

Throughout the LADR program, you will learn legal doctrine, lawyering skills, and professional values, and work in Chicago-Kent's teaching law firm, supervised by clinical professors who are expert practitioners and mentors. You will learn the art of lawyering through two years of intensive skills and clinical training. Your experience will teach you how to become a competent, ethical, and socially responsible lawyer.

To learn more about this program, please attend the following Information Meeting -

Wednesday, January 30, 2002

3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m.

Room C20


You may also contact Prof. Gary Laser, Room 631, or pick up an application and curriculum memorandum in Room 600.

APPLICATIONS FOR THIS PROGRAM MUST BE TURNED IN BY FEBRUARY 5, 2002. Please turn in applications to the Receptionist in Room 600.

 


JUSTICE WEB COLLABORATORY EXTERNSHIP

The Justice Web Collaboratory (JWC) Externship provides students the opportunity to explore Access to Justice issues, including the use of technology in legal services, alternative legal services delivery models, e-lawyering and pro se litigant assistance. Students work in conjunction with the Justice Web Collaboratory and its Illinois Technology Center for Law & the Public Interest (ITC), a statewide collaboration of legal services providers, whose mission is to provide low-income individuals with greater access to the legal system through the use of technology.

The externship allows students to acquire direct client service experience and to use that experience to assist in the development and upgrading of innovative web resources for pro se litigants and the public. Students will split their time between these two activities and will have the flexibility to choose opportunities that most appeal to them. Students who have computer and web design skills will have the ability to utilize those skills.

The direct client service portion of the externship provides students with experience in assisting self-represented litigants and/or providing brief legal services to low-income individuals. Examples of these opportunities include the following:

  • Assisting pro se litigants at court-based help desks;

  • Providing legal advice over telephone hotlines;

  • Negotiating on behalf of tenants in eviction court.

The development and upgrading of web resources for pro se litigants and the public involves the following activities:

  • Working with expert attorneys selected from the Illinois legal aid community to build and maintain the Illinois poverty law web portals (www.itcweb.org);

  • Research, drafting and editing of web based legal education materials and legal forms with instructions for the public;

  • Developing appropriate user interfaces for web based document assembly.

A class will meet on Wednesdays at 4:00 p.m. and will be taught by Professors Gross and Staudt. Four (4) credits will be awarded for the JWC Externship, which requires at least 16 hours per week spent on externship activities. Students can earn additional credit the following semester by arrangement.


DESCRIPTION OF

PROPOSED REFUGEE LAW EXTERNSHIP PROGRAM
Midwest Refugee and Asylum Law Training Center
Spring 2002


Students will interview asylum applicants, previously interviewed and accepted by Heartland alliance's Midwest Immigrant & Human Rights Center, to prepare their asylum applications. Each student will research and write a legal brief in support of the client's application for asylum. They will research domestic and international law as well as country conditions. Each student will handle at least one asylum case per semester. Asylum applicants either apply for asylum affirmatively to the Immigration and Naturalization Service or apply defensively to the Immigration Court if they are in deportation or removal proceedings. Students will attend the asylum interview with their clients and a supervising attorney before the Asylum Office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Students who elect to represent an asylum applicant in removal proceedings will appear before the Immigration Court with their clients and a supervising attorney.

To enroll in the externship, students must submit their resumes to Prof. Gross. Prior immigration law experience is not required. Fluency in a second language is helpful although it is not a requirement for the externship.

4 credit hours
Thursday, 12:00 - 2:00 p.m.

Midwest Immigrant Rights Center
208 S. LaSalle Street
Suite 1818
Chicago, Illinois 60604


FIRST DEFENSE LEGAL AID

First Defense Legal Aid (FDLA), the only program of its kind in the country, fills the gap in Illinois' public defender system by providing 24-hour free legal representation to adults and children in police custody or under police investigation. FDLA provides a unique "frontline" criminal defense experience for students, enabling them to see: how evidence is collected and created; the tactics of the Chicago Police Department when trying to extract a confession or question witnesses; the role that the Cook County State's Attorney's Felony Review Team plays during the beginning stages of a criminal investigation; and the utter vulnerability of children and adults when under intensive and sometimes abusive interrogation. In addition to this stationhouse representation, FDLA also works toward the permanent improvement of our criminal justice system by educating the public, organizing community residents to combat police misconduct, by engaging in legislative and community advocacy, investigating patterns of misconduct by the Chicago Police, taking select criminal defense cases to trial, and initiating 42 U.S.C. §1983 litigation to improve the policies and procedures of the Chicago Police as they relate to the treatment of persons in police custody.

Students participating in the FDLA class must be eligible for a Illinois Supreme Court Rule 711 license. Students representing FDLA clients at Chicago Police Stations will gain unique insight into the criminal justice system at its earliest stage and be able to:

1. View and Document Line-Ups, DNA testing, and Halt Lie Detector Tests.
2. Assert a Client's 5th Amendment Right to Remain Silent and 6th Amendment Right to Counsel.
3. Gather Information from the Police on the Progress of the Investigation.
4. Document Police Brutality and other Misconduct.
5. Counsel Clients and Provide Information to their Families.
6. Interview Witnesses.
7. Demand a Client's Immediate Release at the Police Station and in Court.

Students will be trained to provide legal representation to adults and children under criminal investigation. In addition to a weekly, one-hour class (Mondays from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.), students will be available to represent persons in custody six hours each week and actually go to the police station to represent them. Students will be provided with pagers and FDLA will reimburse transportation expenses. Three supervising attorneys will be available at all times to assist students and provide support. For more information, contact Kate Walz at (773) 826-6550 or kewalz@aol.com .

 

LOW INCOME TAXPAYERS CLINIC

For information on the Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic, please visit the new website: 

                        http://www.kentlaw.edu/academics/clinic/tax/
 
 


LAW OFFICES OF CHICAGO-KENT

The Law Offices of Chicago-Kent offers nine long-standing programs in live-client clinical legal education which accommodate over 150 students in the fall and spring semesters and over 50 students in the summer semester. 

For a complete description of all clinical programs, please visit the Law Offices' Home Page at www.kentlaw.edu/academics/clinic
 
 
 
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