Clinics

Through the clinics, law students learn essential lawyering skills while assuming and growing into the role of lawyer. Their responsibilities include handling trials and evidentiary hearings, significant appellate arguments and briefs, major business and real estate transactions, legislative and administrative testimony and comments, and complex mediations, negotiations, and counseling sessions. Rutgers Law School clinics promote professional judgment, collaboration, and a sense of professional identity and responsibility among students who participate. Clinic students also learn the positive difference that well-trained members of the legal profession can make in their clients' lives.

Child Advocacy Clinic (Newark ) Students in the Child Advocacy Clinic (CAC) work on a variety of cases and projects concerning children and low-income families. In many of our cases, students act as law guardians (attorneys) for children who have been brought before the family court because of child abuse and/or child neglect concerns. Many of these children have been removed from the care of their parents, at least temporarily, and are residing in foster care or with relatives. In these cases, students are responsible for ensuring that the legal interests and needs of these children are being met. As part of this representation, students appear in court hearings in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Essex County, Family Part.

On other cases, students represent family members in fair hearings (like mini-trials) before administrative law judges (of the Office of Administrative Law and the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review) where children have been wrongly denied needed public benefits or incorrectly terminated from benefit programs. In these hearings, students do everything from interviewing clients to writing briefs to representing clients at hearings.

Community education and outreach also are an important part of the work of the CAC. Accordingly, in addition to individual casework, students are responsible for at least one community education project each semester. Past projects have included conducting educational workshops for youth aging out of foster care and youth detained at juvenile detention centers, planning and presenting at conferences for kinship caregivers, preparing written educational materials, and staffing information tables at various community gatherings.

What is unique about the CAC is its holistic, collaborative, and interdisciplinary approach to addressing the needs of children and families. In all its work, the CAC collaborates closely with all of the other clinics at Rutgers Law School and with professionals in other disciplines in addressing the multiple issues, legal and nonlegal, that the children and their families may face. In addition to fundamental lawyering skills, substantive law, and professional responsibility, the CAC's curriculum teaches law students the importance of evaluating cases in a comprehensive manner and how to work effectively with persons from other disciplines.

Child and Family Advocacy Clinic (Camden) This clinic focuses on the skills needed to represent clients, ethical issues that arise in cases, and roles of counselor and attorney. Under the supervision of clinical professors who are licensed to practice in New Jersey and experienced in child dependency law practice, students will represent children in child abuse and neglect cases in Family Court in Camden. Students may also represent children in administrative hearings and proceedings regarding public benefits, education, immigration, and medical and mental health issues. Through advocacy in court and other venues, students will help ensure that the child welfare system is sufficiently addressing the safety, permanency, and well-being needs of the clients. The ultimate goal for most, if not all, clients will be to help make sure each client has a loving, safe, and permanent home.

Students work with a partner and, in some cases will collaborate with social workers, to undertake all steps necessary to prepare for court hearings. Students will interview clients, review court and other documents from related cases or prior proceedings, prepare direct and cross examination, make strategic case decisions, and draft documents. Students will often engage in substantial writing in their case work, such as preparing motion packets or briefs, normally with very short deadlines. Those situations provide students with an additional and valuable learning experience about the realities of trial practice from a research and writing perspective. In New Jersey, third-year students may appear in court under the New Jersey Third Year Practice Rule, and students in the clinic make all necessary court appearances.

Children who have suffered physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect need zealous advocates to protect their legal rights. These children are vulnerable, confused, and usually require intense counseling from their attorneys. Specialized training and supervision is provided to help students understand the intricacies involved with representing minor clients in this context.

Special Note: In addition to class sessions, students in the course must also be available at times other than the scheduled class hours to attend hearings (approximately three-four times per semester), and meet with clients, classmates, the supervising clinical attorney, and other interested parties in the case(s) at the law school or other locations. As a result, students must have some flexibility in their schedules, particularly during business hours, to permit them to accommodate these additional time demands. Prerequisites: Completion of 56 course credits, the courses in Evidence and Professional Responsibility. Preferred: Child Abuse and Neglect. Recommended: Family Law, Juvenile Law and Children and the Law. Exclusion: Students may not simultaneously enroll in the law school's Externship Program and the Child and Family Advocacy Clinic without permission of both supervising professors. Students may not enroll in another law school clinic and the Child and Family Advocacy Clinic. All students taking this clinic must be in good academic standing. Academic and disciplinary records will be verified with the dean of students.

Children's Justice Clinic (Camden) Focuses on the skills necessary for client representation, the ethical issues that arise in cases, and the roles of attorney and counselor. Students represent juvenile clients in delinquency hearings, sentencing and post-disposition review, and associated legal matters. Clinical faculty supervise. Students work with a partner and undertake all steps necessary to prepare for court hearings, including interviewing clients, reviewing court documents from related cases or prior proceedings, making strategic decisions, and drafting motions, briefs, and other documents as needed. Typically, these briefs are under 10 pages, but must be prepared in only a few days. These situations provide students with an additional and valuable learning experience about the realities of trial practice. Students also make all necessary court appearances under the New Jersey Third Year Practice Rule.

In addition to providing legal representation in juvenile court, teams identify aggravating factors in the client's home, school, or community environment; and identify and make referrals to other law school, campus, or community-based services that can address problems well beyond the scope of the delinquency system. There is also a community education component, in which student teams provide education to their clients about their rights and the implications of their involvement in the juvenile justice system. The whole-client approach optimizes outcomes for individual clients. In addition to developing their criminal trial practice skills, students learn how to integrate a systemic best practice perspective into individual representation.

Special Note: In addition to scheduled class meetings, students in the course must also be available at times other than the scheduled class hours to attend hearings (approximately three-six times per semester), meet with clients, classmates, and the supervising clinical attorney and social workers, and must have some flexibility in their schedules to permit them to accommodate these additional time demands.
Prerequisite: Completion of 56 course credits and the courses in Evidence and Professional Responsibility. Recommended: Juvenile Law, Trial Advocacy, Criminal Procedure. Exclusion: Students may not simultaneously enroll in the law school's Externship Program or another clinic and the Children's Rights Clinic.

Civil Justice Clinic (Newark) The Civil Justice Clinic, first established as the Urban Legal Clinic in 1970, instructs law students in the representation of indigent clients and client groups in a wide variety of civil cases, primarily in the areas of housing, family, consumer law, probate, bankruptcy, unemployment compensation, social security and SSI disability benefits, and other public benefits law. Students handle all aspects of proceedings including interviewing and counseling clients; negotiating with adversaries; writing pleadings, motions, and briefs; and conducting depositions and trials.

Housing cases typically involve defending eviction actions, helping tenants obtain needed repairs, litigating actions to recover tenants' security deposits, or fighting illegal rent increases. The subject of consumer cases range from real estate, home repair, car repair, or purchase scams. Family cases may deal with anything from simple divorces, domestic violence, or child support hearings to more complex divorces involving real estate, child support, custody, alimony, pension, or other equitable distribution issues. The social security disability cases typically involve either full evidentiary hearings before federal administrative law judges--often involving the cross-examination of medical and vocational experts--or federal court appellate advocacy involving the formal preparation of appellate briefs sometimes followed by oral argument in U.S. District Court or the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

The clinic also occasionally pursues larger-scale law reform and impact advocacy on systemic issues of civil poverty law, including:

class action litigation challenging the mass destruction and misuse of thousands of Newark's low-income federal public housing apartments without adequate replacement;
investigation of systemic delays in the administration of the food stamp program in New Jersey;
advocacy on behalf of tenant groups in rent strikes against private landlords; and
analysis and comments on proposals by the Administrative Conference of the United States that would create additional procedural and substantive burdens for indigent SSI and Social Security Disability claimants.

Clinic students perform various forms of community outreach by making presentations to veterans' groups and by aiding pro se litigants in divorce and consumer law clinics. The clinic will share a lawyering skills seminar with the Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic, instructing students in a full range of lawyering skills including interviewing, counseling, development of a theory of the case, cross-cultural competency, negotiation, motion practice, and various aspects of trial practice and witness examination.

Pre- or co-requisite: Evidence. The Civil Justice Clinic is only open to 3L students.

Civil Practice Clinic (Camden) The Civil Practice Clinic involves both client representation and a seminar component. Students provide representation in civil cases under the supervision of an attorney. Working with a student partner, all steps necessary to representation are undertaken, including interviewing clients, making strategic decisions, drafting documents and briefs, conducting negotiations, and making all court appearances. Focuses on skills necessary for client representation, ethical issues, and the roles of attorney and counselor. Students will be assigned to cases in a variety of practice areas including consumer law, Social Security disability, public benefits cases, landlord-tenant eviction actions, family law, and will drafting. Students engage in both affirmative and defensive litigation, and provide preventive legal planning and client advice.

Special Note: Course meets in a two-hour block twice a week. Students must be available at times other than the scheduled class hours to accommodate court appearances and to meet with clients, classmates, and the instructors. Meetings may be arranged at the student's convenience, but some scheduling flexibility is required. Prerequisites: Completion of 56 course credits and Evidence and Professional Responsibility or permission of instructor. Exclusions: No cross-registration with Externship without permission of instructor.

Community and Transactional Lawyering Clinic (Newark) The Community and Transactional Lawyering Clinic, first established as the Community Law Clinic in 1996, provides corporate and transactional legal services to New Jersey nonprofit corporations (specifically those corporations that provide services geared to the needs of lower-income people in the City of Newark and nearby urban areas), start-up for-profit businesses and microenterprises, charter schools, and individuals such as artists and inventors. The clinic provides initial corporate organizational work (drafting corporate documents, certificates of incorporation, by-laws, and organizational minutes), tax-exempt nonprofit status filings, charity registration, real estate transactions, commercial transactions, and counseling on choice of organizational form and capacity-building with community groups and various associations. Student work also includes contract drafting and review; loan closings; equipment and facilities lease drafting and review; bankruptcy counseling; confidentiality agreements; preparation and revision of employee manuals; noncompete and nondisclosure agreements; board of directors guidance; and joint venture agreements.

The clinic is principally a nonlitigation clinic, although it handles a limited number of matters which may involve some litigation such as adult guardianship matters and some oversight and assistance of the small legal staff of one of its largest nonprofit, corporate clients, Covenant House of New Jersey. Students may perform some work on intellectual property matters related to their transactional clients. Finally, the clinic strives to advance justice and community empowerment by representing resident groups and community development corporations (CDCs) regarding urban redevelopment and planning.

Community Reentry Practicum (Camden) Students in the Community Reentry Practicum work with ex-offenders, as well as young adults at risk of involvement with the criminal justice system, to resolve civil legal matters that present barriers to employment, education, and advancement in society. In conjunction with a community partner agency, students interview young adults, determine their eligibility for expungement, and then draft expungement petitions for eligible clients. Students also work with ex-offenders who are referred to the program through the U. S. District Court for assistance with issues such as municipal court warrants and family court matters. Students attend a weekly seminar where they will learn interviewing, counseling, and drafting skills along with substantive law. The course also examines the challenges and public policy implications of our work within the legal system. Prerequisite: Students must have already taken Professional Responsibility or must be taking the course concurrently. Second-, third-, and fourth-year students may enroll in this course.

Constitutional Rights Clinic (Newark) The Constitutional Rights Clinic engages in impact litigation in the area of individual civil liberties and civil rights, as protected in the constitutions of the United States and the State of New Jersey. Students will be expected to research and draft briefs and other pleadings at both the trial and appellate level. Students will also engage in other professional skills, such as client interviewing, fact investigation, strategic planning, crafting legal theories, and preparing for oral arguments. Each fall on Election Day, clinic students who satisfy the third-year practice rule regularly represent in NJ Superior Court individual voters who have been denied the right to vote at the polling place. The clinic also engages in other nonlitigation projects, such as drafting proposed civil rights legislation, coordinating voter registration programs, writing detailed reports on constitutional violations, and commenting on proposed administrative regulations and governmental programs to the extent they implicate civil liberties, civil rights, and equal social justice concerns.

Topics in any particular semester will depend upon the current clinic docket, but recent major projects have included: initiating litigation to establish Election Day voter registration, providing legal counsel to the chair of the NJ Congressional Reapportionment Commission, bringing the first state law challenge to the use of electronic voting machines that do not produce a verifiable paper ballot, and successfully striking down the practice of denying state higher education financial assistance to United States citizens whose parents are undocumented immigrants. In cooperation with the ACLU of New Jersey, the clinic regularly files 10 or more amicus curiae briefs each year in the New Jersey Supreme Court or Appellate Division on a variety of civil liberties cases. Clinic students may also work on international human rights cases in conjunction with the International Human Rights Clinic.

Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic (Newark) The Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic, first established as a component of the Urban Legal Clinic (now known as the Civil Justice Clinic), provides legal representation to incarcerated youths and to adults in minor criminal, parole, and actual innocence matters. Students go to court at least once each week for the purpose of interviewing and counseling new clients facing criminal charges and representing them at arraignment. Following the initial appearance, students conduct investigations, engage in discovery and motion practice, negotiate pleas, and, in many instances, prepare the case for trial. Students conduct suppression hearings and bench trials, as well as oral argument on sentencing and other issues, under close faculty supervision. In addition, students undertake a variety of work on behalf of clients who were convicted of serious offenses as juveniles, including preparation for parole hearings, appeals from denials of parole, and investigation of innocence claims. Finally, students work intensively with youth committed to New Jersey's juvenile justice system, challenging conditions of confinement, seeking parole release, appealing parole revocations, and easing the reentry process. Work on behalf of clients is supplemented by weekly case rounds classes, during which students conduct simulated hearings, hear from guest lecturers, and brainstorm about their cases. They also take on juvenile justice policy projects in collaboration with the New Jersey Public Defender's office, the Rutgers-Camden Children's Justice Clinic, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, and the ACLU of New Jersey, among other organizations.

The clinic will share a lawyering skills seminar with the Civil Justice Clinic, instructing students in a full range of lawyering skills including interviewing, counseling, development of a theory of the case, cross-cultural competency, negotiation, motion practice, and various aspects of trial practice and witness examination. Pre- or corequisite: Evidence. The Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic is only open to 3L students.

Domestic Violence Clinic (Camden) The Domestic Violence Clinic focuses on the skills necessary for client representation, the ethical issues that arise in cases, and the roles of attorney and counselor. Students participating in this clinic represent victims of domestic violence in complex domestic violence matters under the supervision of clinical professors who are licensed to practice in New Jersey and experienced in domestic violence. The types of representations that students undertake include, among other things, final restraining order hearings where both parties have filed for relief, final restraining order hearings involving novel issues of law, motions for reconsideration, contempt hearings, or appeals. Students work with a partner and undertake all steps necessary to prepare for court hearings. Students interview clients, review court documents from related cases or prior proceedings, prepare direct and cross examination, make strategic decisions, and draft documents. Students often engage in substantial writing in their casework, such as preparing motion packets or briefs, normally with very short deadlines. Those situations provide students with an additional and valuable learning experience about the realities of trial practice from a research and writing perspective. In New Jersey, third-year students may appear in court under the New Jersey Third Year Practice Rule, and students in the clinic make all necessary court appearances.
Domestic violence cases typically involve working with clients who are in highly stressful life situations, who often have negative experiences with the justice system, and who may need to make major life changes in order to maintain their own safety and that of their children, if any. The challenges facing attorneys who practice in this area are distinctive and many practitioners lack specialized training. Students in the clinic benefit from confronting the challenges of domestic violence practice in a small group composed entirely of students who are entering the class with some background in domestic violence law, practice, and procedure. Students learn how to integrate a systemic perspective on domestic violence law into individual representation and also have the satisfaction of helping raise the standards of domestic violence practice in Camden (which some may choose to continue to do on a pro bono basis after graduation).

Special Note: This course meets four hours per week, but students in the course must also be available at times other than the scheduled class hours to attend hearings, cover court rotations, and to meet with clients, classmates, and the supervising clinical attorney. Hearings typically take place in the mornings Monday-Thursday. Flexible morning schedules are desirable while participating in this clinic. Prerequisites: Completion of 56 course credits and the courses in Evidence and Professional Responsibility. Recommended: A domestic violence course or a previous courthouse rotation through the Domestic Violence Project. Exclusion: Students may not simultaneously enroll in the law school's Externship Program and the Domestic Violence Clinic without permission of both supervising professors.

Education and Health Law Clinic (Newark) The Education and Health Law Clinic, first established as the Special Education Clinic in 1995, provides free legal representation to indigent clients in special education, early intervention, and school discipline matters. In addition, students in law and social work partner with Rutgers medical professionals to address the legal and social needs of pediatric patients with disabilities and their families in an effort to improve overall child and family health and well-being.

Representation in the clinic entails everything from interviewing clients, reviewing school and expert records, researching and drafting legal documents, appearing at meetings with school personnel, mediation, emergency and due process administrative hearings to handling federal court proceedings either on the merits or for recovery of attorneys' fees. Students are exposed to new areas of substantive law, learn a wide variety of lawyering skills, and experience firsthand the benefits and challenges of interprofessional collaboration in a multidisciplinary setting. Students participate in a weekly case rounds class designed to advance the case work in a group setting and to analyze and stimulate reflection on vexing ethical, strategic, and functional issues arising in client and project work.

The clinic also engages in community and statewide education and training projects and activities. The prerequisite or corequisite Special Education Law Seminar includes substantive law, simulation exercises, and guest lecturers from both the educational and legal fields and provides substantive law coverage and practice skills training for work in this clinic. Pre- or corequisite: Special Education Seminar.

Entrepreneurship Clinic (Newark) The Entrepreneurship Clinic seeks to provide students with hands-on transactional law experience in representing for-profit and social entrepreneurs. It will also develop projects, in partnership with the Rutgers Business School and the School of Public Affairs and Administration, on which J.D. students can collaborate with M.B.A. and/or M.P.A. students. And it will create linkages with the Greater Newark entrepreneurial community that will provide further opportunities to promote economic development and job creation.

The clinic provides counseling and representation on such matters as: pre-venture activities; business planning; entity selection (e.g., whether to incorporate, form a partnership, create a limited liability company); negotiating, drafting, and reviewing agreements; management and transparency-in-governance issues; capital structure, valuation, and finance; intellectual property; ongoing entrepreneurial and business activities; particular issues relevant to nonprofits; employee management issues; and community relations issues. Working on teams under the supervision of a faculty member, students will be responsible for maintaining relationships with their clients and the client files; reviewing clients' business models and developing work plans to meet the clients' needs; recording time; undertaking research; and participating in firm and team meetings (including weekly case rounds in which students discuss their cases). A weekly seminar will supplement the work representing clients. Its objective is to provide an overview of the critical concepts, perspectives, and skills necessary for the successful practice of transactional law. The seminar will cover entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship law, case management, client interactions, professional responsibility, transactional lawyering, forming a business, financing/funding a business, contract negotiation and drafting, building a business brand, and protecting intellectual property.

Prerequisite: Business Organizations. Priority will be given to evening students. Students are precluded from taking both the Entrepreneurship Clinic and the Community and Transactional Lawyering Clinc.

Federal Tax Law Clinic (Newark) The Federal Tax Law Clinic represents low-income individuals in disputes with the IRS. Students represent clients at audits, negotiate with IRS appeals, and actually litigate cases in the U.S. Tax Court. Principal educational goals include developing familiarity with tax rules and procedures and ethical considerations in tax practice. Students develop skills in interviewing, counseling, and negotiation through simulation exercises and then use these skills in their cases. Students argue a mock motion and participate in a mock Tax Court trial.
Prerequisite: Federal Income Tax. The Federal Tax Law Clinic is open to 2L and 3L students.

Human Rights Advocacy and Litigation (Camden) This 4-credit course will combine class study of international human rights litigation with substantial written assignments prepared at the request of nonprofit litigators and human rights groups. The course will meet four hours a week. Students will research and write briefs, complaints, memos, and reports for nongovernmental, nonprofit human rights litigators and advocates. Class time and assigned readings will study domestic and international human rights advocacy mechanisms and explore the legal, strategic, ethical, and theoretical issues raised by such work. Some classes will focus on issues triggered by the particular projects assigned that semester. Some class time will be used for group or individual meetings with the professor. Outside class, students will work on projects in collaboration with one or more other students. Projects will be designed to expose students to the different tools available to promote respect for human rights and to integrate the theory and practice of human rights advocacy. Assignments will vary each semester. All assignments will require extensive research and writing. The clinic will provide significant opportunity to develop international human rights law research and writing skills. Enrollment is limited to 8 students.

Immigrant Justice Clinic (Camden) Students in the Immigrant Justice Clinic will represent low-income immigrants in matters at the intersection between immigration law and state law. Under the supervision of a clinical professor, students are responsible for all aspects of the representation including interviewing and counseling clients, preparing witnesses, engaging in fact development, conducting legal research, drafting litigation documents, and oral advocacy. Students may also have the opportunity to assist immigrant clients with landlord-tenant, family law, post-conviction relief, and other matters, and to engage in research and advocacy on issues affecting the immigrant community. In addition to their casework and advocacy, students will attend a twice-weekly seminar focused on lawyering skills, ethics, and substantive law.

Students enrolled in the Immigrant Justice Clinic will receive 4-6 academic credits (depending whether they are enrolled during the summer or during the academic year), and skills and writing credit. Optional writing-intensive credit will also be available. Special Note: In addition to class sessions, students in the course must also be available at times other than the scheduled class hours to attend hearings and meet with clients, classmates, and the supervising professor. As a result, students must have some flexibility in their schedules, particularly during business hours, to permit them to accommodate these additional time demands. This clinic may involve some travel to Immigration Court in Newark and to other venues in South Jersey. Prerequisites: Status as a senior as defined in Rule 1.5 and a course in Professional Responsibility. Recommended: Immigration Law and Evidence. Permission of instructor required. Students may not simultaneously enroll in the Law School's Externship Program and a clinic without permission of both supervising professors. Students may not simultaneously enroll in another clinic and the Immigrant Justice Clinic. All students taking this clinic must be in good academic standing. Academic and disciplinary records will be verified with the dean of students.

Immigrant Rights Clinc (Newark) The Immigrant Rights Clinic (IRC), the newest of the Rutgers' clinics, serves the local and national immigrant population through a combination of individual client representation and broader advocacy. Under faculty supervision, students enrolled in the IRC represent immigrants seeking various forms of relief from removal, including asylum for individuals fearing persecution; protection for victims of human trafficking; protection for battered immigrants; protection for victims of certain types of crimes; protection for abused, abandoned, or neglected immigrant children; and cancellation of removal. Working in teams, students are responsible for all aspects of representing their clients, including interviewing and counseling, preparing witnesses, engaging in fact investigation, conducting legal research, drafting litigation documents (such as affidavits, briefs, and evidence packets), and oral advocacy. In many cases, students represent their clients at immigration hearings at the end of the semester. Students may also have the opportunity to work on broader advocacy projects on behalf of immigrants. The weekly seminar class focuses on substantive humanitarian immigration law and live client lawyering skills. Students also participate in weekly team meetings and rounds sessions.

Students wishing to participate in the IRC must enroll in the fall semester for 6 credits. Students will then have the option of continuing in the spring semester, and if they do so, they will enroll for an additional 2 or 4 credits. No new students are enrolled in the IRC in the spring semester. Pre- or corequisite: Refugee Law.

Intellectual Property Law Clinic (Newark) Intellectual Property Law Clinic, first established as a component of the Community Law Clinic (now known as the Community Transactional Lawyering Clinic), provides intellectual property and entertainment law advice and assistance for nonprofit entities, artists, inventors, start-up for-profit businesses and microenterprises, and charter schools. The clinic's work includes intellectual property audits and licensing; and copyright, trademark, trade secret, and patent assistance. The Intellectual Property Law Clinic is principally a nonlitigation clinic. The clinic was one of the first clinics selected to participate in the United States Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) Clinical Pilot Program. In that program clinic students are authorized to practice before the USPTO, and have engaged in work such as drafting and filing trademark applications, responding to office actions, and drafting and filing briefs in appeals to the trademark trial and appeal board from final refusals. The clinic includes a weekly seminar taught jointly with the Community and Transactional Lawyering Clinic, which focuses on transactional law practice. Prerequisite: Copyright and Trademark or Patent Law.

International Human Rights Clinic (Newark) The International Human Rights Clinic, first established as a component of the Constitutional Litigation Clinic (now known as the Constitutional Rights Clinic), has pursued cases and projects in U.S. domestic courts and international tribunals to promote international human rights norms. This clinic seeks to advance the integration of international human rights norms into American domestic legal practice, as well as to train a new generation of lawyers to use human rights law to advance justice in the United States and abroad. Both applied international human rights law and American civil rights law will be taught and utilized in clinic cases and projects.

Illustrative examples of international human rights projects include:

litigation under the Alien Tort Claims Act, customary international human rights law, statutory civil rights and pendent tort claims, challenging inhumane conditions of confinement of aliens seeking asylum or refugee status at detention facilities;
a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights challenging New Jersey's disenfranchisement of persons on probation and parole as violations of universal human rights norms;
an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court determining whether the Alien Tort Claims Act permits private individuals to bring suit against foreign citizens for crimes committed in other countries in violation of the law of nations;
amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court addressing liability for corporations under the Alien Tort Claims Act and Torture Victim Protection Act for international human rights violations committed overseas; and
reports prepared for the UN Human Rights Committee evaluating enforcement by the United States of ratified human rights treaties.

Students enrolled in this clinic will also work on amicus briefs in cases pending in both New Jersey and throughout the United States to inform courts about international human rights issues related to cases pending before those courts, prepare for biannual meetings with the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights and the U.S. State Department on the U.S.'s implementation process of human rights treaties, and work on impact litigation and other advocacy work related to human trafficking, which has been called "modern slavery" by the U.S. government, as well as by other nations. Students in this clinic will also be expected to also handle some domestic civil rights cases and will share a seminar with the Constitutional Rights Clinic. Students will be actively involved in all aspects of the clinic's work including deciding which cases to take, interviewing clients, developing the facts, crafting legal theories, drafting legal briefs, and preparing for oral arguments.

Public Interest Research and Writing (Camden) This is a hybrid clinical and writing course. Students undertake real legal research assignments from practicing lawyers who represent nonprofits or government agencies. The course culminates in submitting a written product to the outside lawyer and students' oral presentation of their research results to the outside lawyer. The course prepares students for collaborative law practice. Students are responsible both for producing their own work product and for providing peer feedback to other students on every stage of the research, writing, and oral presentation process. There is peer review of the research plan, outline, draft, revised draft, and practice oral presentations. Because students are cast both as the authoring attorney for their own work product and simulate the role of a supervising attorney for other students' work product, there is substantial peer review of written work product in addition to work required for weekly class preparation. To facilitate collaboration, all assignments each semester are for a single outside entity (e.g., Philadelphia Commission for Human Relations, Philadelphia Law Department Civil Rights and Appeals Units). Every week, students will make progress on their own research and writing projects and provide peer review to fellow students. While class time will be devoted to learning research, writing, and oral presentation skills, as well as collaborative meetings among students working on similar projects, most peer review and student work on their own writing projects, which is extensive, takes place outside of class. Limited enrollment: 8.

Small Business Counseling (Camden) Focuses on representing the small business client, especially the new business. Has a clinical component and a simulation component. Under the supervision of the instructor, students advise clients of various organizations in the area including Rutgers Small Business Center, local business incubators, and pro bono programs. The advising includes an initial interview, research as necessary, drafting, and counseling. A team of two students interviews each client, consults with the instructor, counsels the client, and drafts appropriate documents. Students also engage in simulations typical of the attorney for the small business, such as evaluating and implementing the form of organization, participating in the development of a business plan, and drafting agreements. Both components provide opportunities for reflection on business lawyering, including issues of legal, business, and personal ethics; the social function of the business lawyer; and lawyer-client relations.

In addition to the clinical work, the course involves extensive simulation of activities typical in the representation of the small business client. Simulations guarantee a base of experience and support the clinical work by providing a laboratory for improving skills and for problem solving. Issues covered in the simulations include the selection of an organizational form; formalities necessary for the creation of the form selected; partnership and shareholder agreements; basic tax issues; commercial leases; director and officer liability; intellectual property issues; insurance; status of employees; attorney conflicts of interest; and formalizing the attorney-client relationship. Other issues--such as franchise agreements, commercial financing, and government contracting--may be addressed, depending on the scope of the clinical experience. Skills covered include interviewing, fact gathering, use of experts, counseling on legal and business issues, problem solving, planning, and drafting.

Both the clinical work and the simulations provide starting points for discussions of broader lawyering issues. At the beginning of the semester, a set of such issues is defined for the class, and discussion returns to them at appropriate points. As the course description indicates, issues include legal, business, and personal ethics; the social function of the business lawyer; and lawyer-client relations. The instructor provides readings as background material for the discussions. Attorneys and experts from other fields (e.g., business school faculty, insurance agents, accountants) participate in the class at appropriate points. Limited Enrollment: 16. Prerequisite: Business Organizations.