2013 Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic Reunion

On Saturday, April 6, 2013, alumni of the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic returned to Washington College of Law for a day of reflecting, reconnecting and celebration for the first IP Clinic Reunion.  The program provided a wonderful opportunity for all members of the IP Clinic community to come together to celebrate the value of the experience, the clinic’s accomplishments and strengthen the clinic’s alumni network. The reunion program included a welcome luncheon with introductions and reflections by present and past faculty members, alumni and current students, followed by panels of faculty and alumni sharing thoughts on the clinic experience and the transition from clinic to practice. The reunion concluded with a dinner reception featuring a keynote address by Native American activist Suzan Harjo, lead plaintiff in the trademark disparagement suit against the Washington football franchise and current IP Clinic client.  The Clinic Class of 2013 had the opportunity to meet with the alums, learn about their career paths since graduation, and forged connections with alumni at the event.  The IP Clinic faculty hopes to host more reunion events in the coming years.

Heard at the reunion: 

“The law school experience can be intimidating, competitive—emphasizing the regurgitation of legal rules rather than the nurturing of intellectual curiosity.  The clinic changed everything . . .  “

“ Before I start any engagement I have to ask myself — What is our story? Who is the audience? What are the facts? What are the most important points? This process is almost effortless because of the training I received from the WCL IP clinic.” 

“ I came into clinic frightened at the prospect of being responsible for representing “real clients” in “real matters” with “real implications.” Up until this point, I have been the student, the intern, the clerk, but in clinic I was the lawyer.”

 “ No other course was more valuable to my evolution from student to attorney because of the perspective and hands on experience [the Clinic] provided.”

“ As I come to the end of my journey in clinic, I am leaving with many new skills, new perspectives on intellectual property and public interest, and invaluable bonds with my supervisors and clinic mates.”

DRLC Students Learn From the Client Community

The Disability Rights Law Clinic (DRLC) recently partnered with two local advocacy groups to pilot a new simulation model for clinic students to learn skills for interviewing clients who have intellectual disabilities. Unlike prior exercises in which DRLC students took turns role-playing as clients and attorneys, in this new model, our volunteer actors were individuals with intellectual disabilities.

Simulation exercises are an opportunity for students to experience and practice lawyering skills such as interviewing and counseling in a supported environment. Interviewing can be a difficult skill to master in any setting, but it presents particular challenges when the client has an intellectual disability. As a pedagogical matter, we wanted our students to understand and develop their interviewing techniques and skills in the context of engaging individuals similarly situated to our clients.

We assigned students to one of two simulated situations as we had previously done: one focused on special education and the other on advocacy on behalf of a person with an intellectual disability. Self-advocates from Project Action, a coalition of adults with intellectual disabilities, and Advocates for Justice and Education, comprised of parents and youth organizers focused on special education outreach and support, received scripts related to the simulation.  Students received a brief description of an initial phone intake meeting and had to prepare for a first interview with their client. DRLC Dean’s Fellows and our administrative team worked with the community advocates to review the material in advance, answer any questions they may have, and provide opportunities to practice the material, to the extent the advocates wished to do so.

The community advocates reported that they enjoyed the opportunity to work with law students on issues they experience daily.  Many spent time with our students after the simulations ended to discuss their impressions and how similar the simulation fact patterns were (or in some cases, were not) to their lives.  Among other things, students felt they were able to enter “role” with greater ease because they could actually engage with persons who experience these issues in real life. We plan to review the process and support continued community partnerships, and we hope to continue this model in the coming years.

Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood?

Students sit in one of the District’s two “big chairs.”

The Community and Economic Development Clinic (CEDLC) finished up its two day orientation in August by going local! CEDLC represents community-based organizations and individuals in a range of matters, including choice of entity, governance, financing, housing, small  business development, legislation and advocacy. This year, CEDLC  has 20 students: 16 for the full year and four who will be working in the fall or spring  semester with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to represent clients in New Orleans.

Ben’s Chili Bowl – a D.C. institution

A key part of clinic orientation is getting students out into the community to see their clients and to situate those clients in their neighborhoods. In the past, CEDLC rented a bus and drove students around the city.  For the past five years, however, CEDLC has opted for a scavenger hunt. The hunt is designed to take students to all 8 wards of the city, to clients’ locations, and to key resources and identifiers in the community. While the scavenger hunt is great fun, it also encourages independence and gives the students opportunities to work in teams, practice collaboration, and gain valuable context for their client representations.

In memory of Chuck Brown, students were assigned to find a Go-go club.

In another musical tribute, students visited Duke Ellington’s childhood home in Logan Circle.

Doug Keillor Gets a Fulbright

Congratulations to Doug Keillor, a student attorney in our International Human Rights Law Clinic.  A 2012 WCL graduate, Doug is one of two WCL students to receive a Fulbright award. Doug will go to Mexico City, where he will be conducting research into the scope and causes of excessive juvenile pretrial detention, working in conjunction with Instituto de Justicia Procesal Penal, Defensa de Niñas y Niños Internacional, Reintegra and the Open Society Justice Initiative.

While at WCL, Doug also participated in the UN Committee Against Torture Project with Dean Grossman and took several international law courses.  Doug said about his clinic experience, “Clinic was key to my Fulbright project.  Working with human rights victims, researching human rights laws in foreign countries, and interviewing witnesses are all critical skills that I will use during my Fulbright project.  Not only that, but the clinic faculty helped me to put my Fulbright application together and supported me at every step along the way.”

We’re proud of Doug, and of all our clinic graduates.

Living Up to Our Clients’ Hopes

As Maryland’s Governor Martin O’Malley signs into law Thursday the same-sex marriage bill passed by the Maryland legislature last week, I am glad for reasons well  beyond the obvious one—the elimination of a grossly discriminatory barrier to the gay and lesbian couples’ rights to have their relationships recognized and honored as equal.

As I think of this moment of progress, I think of the many clients served by the Immigrant Justice Clinic where I teach. Clients whose sexual orientation caused them to experience horrific suffering in their home countries. Beatings, rape, exile from families and communities…these are the all-too-common details typical of stories told to us by these men and women, all of whom came to America seeking safety. In societies where the promotion of LGBT rights meets ferocious resistance, where LGBT leaders are too often persecuted, these clients knew innately that their sexual orientation could not denied, and that living their lives freely and fully would be difficult, if not impossible, in their home countries. And so they each, at different times, and from different places, set out on perilous journeys to come to a place they hoped would be safer: the United States. Once here, they have eventually made their way to our clinic, where we have been able to help them secure asylum, despite enormous obstacles.

In a discussion about LGBT asylum, a student once asked me, aren’t we in some ways selling false hope? Despite vastly broader support for the LGBT communities in the United States, homophobia abounds. Hate crimes still occur. Indeed, although we sometimes like to think homophobia happens far away from us (like South Dakota’s appalling proposal to only recognize domestic violence when it occurs between a man and a woman), Washington, D.C. has itself in the last few months experienced a terrible string of attacks on transgendered people. Indeed, another of our clinic clients endured ongoing abuse by his boyfriend, and the clinic helped him apply for immigration status based on being a victim of a serious crime.

All this is undeniably true. Yet our clients nonetheless report feeling safer here, for the first time in their lives. Through phenomenal work being done at the Whitman Walker Clinic, at La Clinica del Pueblo, by the late-lamented WEAVE, and by other groups around the area, these survivors of some of life’s worst abuses have found places to come together, find solidarity, receive therapy and support, and begin building lives anew.

It is for these clients that I am happiest about Maryland’s new law. Slowly by slowly, we are living up to the vision they always had for us. We have many miles to go, but the progress will not be undone. And every shift that we make here toward a better, more inclusive world, sends even more hope to those still suffering in other countries—and supports the vision and fiercely courageous work being done by the advocates who remain in those countries, fighting fearlessly for change, so that no one need flee their homes again.

I salute our clients, I salute those who fight this fight here and in countries from El Salvador to Uganda. And I salute Maryland for getting it right.

La lucha sigue.

Elizabeth Keyes, Practitioner-in-Residence, WCL Immigrant Justice Clinic

Clinic: Now With Videos!

We’ve added lots of video content to our website lately.  There’s a video from our Acting Director, Brenda Smith, about the program and application process more generally.  Each clinic has also recorded a segment with information about that clinic. We hope this will give students more opportunities to explore our offerings and find answers to some of their questions. To see the individual clinic videos, follow this link, then click on the clinic names on the left side of the screen.

Be The Lawyer!

Clinic recruitment is coming! Each year, we wage a wide-scale education campaign to help students understand what the Clinical Program is, how it can promote their educational and professional goals, and how the application process works.  Here are the highlights.

• On Monday, February 20th, we’re having a general information session at 4:00 in Room 602.  We’ll have information tables afterward for the eleven clinics that comprise the program, so you can circulate and ask questions.
• On Thursday, February 23rd, we’re having a luncheon co-sponsored by the Office of Diversity Services.  This is a chance for prospective clinic applicants to speak to current clinic students from a variety of backgrounds to find out what the program is really like.  Though faculty will show up at the beginning to say hello, they won’t stay for the event, so everyone can feel free to be candid with their questions and answers.  Please RSVP if you’d like to attend.
• Over the next 3 weeks, there will be numerous clinic-specific small information sessions so that you can get more details about the programs that particularly interest you.  Note that applicants are REQUIRED to have attended at least one of these information sessions.  You’ll be able to see the final schedule here.
• The application will be available on our website on Monday.
• The application DEADLINE is Friday, March 9th, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
• We will announce clinic selections by e-mail as early in April as possible.

Bottom line, there are many opportunities for students to learn about the program and determine which clinics interest them.

Other sources of information include our website, which contains a series of FAQs about the program. We also maintain feeds on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook and, of course, this blog.

We look forward to seeing you at an upcoming event!