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.

Why We Are Blogging

Blogging is a new frontier for us at the Clinic, and we’re excited about it.  It’s difficult to capture fully the flavor and texture of what we do on a garden-variety web page, and we think this blog can help.  On any given day, we might have students rushing to court, preparing filings, interviewing new clients, negotiating with opposing counsel, and facilitating a community meeting.  We see students who are exhilarated about a favorable outcome, and other students who are dejected that the system didn’t cut their client a break this time.  Students pass through the front office in a nervous frenzy about a mock trial exercise, or excitedly planning a creative presentation for their next case rounds.  We may hear 5 different languages spoken in a 30-minute span, and someone is usually drinking coffee somewhere.  Every day, our organization is about the students who make it work, and the people who trust those students to serve them.  It’s dynamic and exciting.

We’d like to use this blog to give snapshots of what we’re doing behind these doors.  Much of our work is a bit of a mystery to students who aren’t in the program, and we want students considering applying to Clinic to understand the variety of experiences our student attorneys are having.  This is our way of drawing back the curtain a little, to reflect on what we see, and what we and our students are learning together.