July 2007
Giving Back to the Community: Service Learning and Community Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law
Provided by the UNLV Boyd School of Law
The law school provides students with a variety of opportunities for “learning by doing” and putting law into practice while serving members of the community who have inadequate access to legal services and information. The law school offers a variety of experiential and service learning opportunities starting with the Community Service Program and continuing into students’ second, third, and fourth years in the Externship Program, Thomas & Mack Legal Clinics and other service learning opportunities that bring students outside of the law school to prisons, public lands and even to other countries.
Community Service Program
The law school requires first-year students to participate in a community service program. Working with Clark County Legal Services, Nevada Legal Services, and the law school’s Nevada Immigrant Resource Project, teams of students prepare and conduct weekly workshops for unrepresented people regarding immigration law, basic procedures in family or small claims court and on paternity, custody, guardianship, and bankruptcy matters. This program offers students the chance to educate groups of people in a general way without giving specific legal advice. Students are required to attend approximately five hours of training and to conduct weekly, two-hour workshops. Later in their law school careers, students will have the opportunity to work one-on-one with an attorney mentor on pro bono cases in, the “Partners in Pro Bono Program.” By doing so, they gain valuable training and experience. Moreover, these experiences should help reinforce students’ commitment to community service, while demonstrating to them that there is a large unmet need for legal services in our society today. We hope that Boyd School of Law students and graduates will be a positive force-- throughout their careers-- in meeting this need and in making their community a better place.
Thomas & Mack Legal Clinic
The Thomas & Mack Legal Clinic is the law school’s in-house “law firm” and offers students an integrated academic and practice-based educational experience, which teaches students to be reflective practitioners and community-oriented professionals. The clinics provide service to communities in need of legal assistance and seek to improve the quality of, and access to, legal systems that affect communities in need in Nevada. The Thomas & Mack Legal Clinic houses five clinics: child welfare, juvenile justice, capital defense, immigration, and education, all directed by Boyd School of Law professors and supported by the multidisciplinary social work, education and psychology faculty and students.
Under the Nevada Supreme Court Law Student Practice Rule, law students in the clinical programs are licensed to perform legal work in the state and federal courts and administrative forums under the guidance of the faculty. Clinic students are expected to take the lead in all aspects of client representation, including primary responsibility for developing and maintaining the attorney-client relationship, forming case strategy, and conducting fact investigation, legal research, and trial work. This means that law students have the primary responsibility for interviewing their clients, advising them about their legal options, investigating the facts of the case, researching relevant law, drafting and filing legal papers, negotiating with other counsel and advocating on behalf of children, and the meanings of and access to justice for children and parents at risk of family dissolution. Students work collaboratively with students and faculty from other disciplines (social work, psychology and educational psychology) to help identify and address their clients’ problems holistically and appropriately. They also collaborate with students from other clinics on their clients’ overlapping legal issues.
Child Welfare Clinic: Students represent children, parents or guardians in child protection, termination of parental rights, guardianship and related matters which involve contested trials, administrative advocacy and sometimes cutting-edge legal issues. Students also work on complex policy and friend of the court (amicus curiae) matters. The clinic frequently partners with other law offices in its representation and policy work. This clinic explores the role of families in children’s lives, the strengths and weaknesses of state intervention on behalf of children, and the meanings of and access to justice for children and parents at risk of family dissolution.
Juvenile Justice Clinic: Students in the juvenile justice clinic represent children who have been charged in juvenile delinquency proceedings. Law students negotiate with district attorneys, conduct contested hearings or trials, and advocate for proper dispositions and sentences. As part of their clinic work, students also have the opportunity to shadow Juvenile public defenders and observe all aspects of their work in Juvenile Court. This clinic focuses on the meaning and importance of developing an attorney-client relationship, explores the role of juvenile defense attorneys as adversarial counsel in the context of a problem-solving court, and examines the history, policy and interrelationship of the systems that affect children accused of criminal behavior.
Capital Defense Clinic: Students in the Capital Defense Clinic represent defendants in Nevada death penalty cases, focusing primarily on preparing mitigating evidence and argument, the legal case for a sentence less than death. Students may practice in trial, appellate, or habeas corpus proceedings. Students engage in intensive factual, legal and social science investigation in defense of their clients’ lives.
Immigration Clinic: Students in the Immigration Clinic represent clients in a variety of matters involving immigration and immigrant rights. Students may appear in administrative proceedings, Immigration Court, and federal and state courts. Some students may work in appellate and amicus capacities. This clinic also coordinates activities for the Nevada Immigrant Resource Project (NIRP).
Education Clinic: Students in the Education Clinic represent children and parents in Clark County School System education matters such as special education, suspension, expulsion, and English as a second language. The Education Clinic also provides representation in child welfare matters. Students practice primarily in the local juvenile court and at local schools. In summer 2005, a pilot course called “Legal Responses to Intra-Family Violence in a Post-Conflict Society” was offered as part of the Child Welfare Clinic. This course, which involved six students working with two faculty members, focused on comparative legal systems, domestic violence and mediation.
Students learned about Nicaragua’s transition from the inquisitorial to an adversarial justice system and the effect of those reforms on domestic violence cases. Near the end of summer, the class spent two weeks in Nicaragua, where students participated in meetings with community organizations and state officials working on intra-family violence issues and attended a mediation training session in rural Nicaragua. In light of the intensive teaching and learning relationship between student and faculty, the faculty-student ratio is very low, generally six law students in each clinic.
Externship Program
Bridging the gap between law practice and law school education is an important goal of the Boyd School of Law. The law school has made a significant commitment to providing an externship program consistent with the school’s mission. Working closely with the legal community, the externship director has established a year-round program providing opportunities for approximately 100 students each year with the federal and state judiciary, government and public service agencies, and Nevada and U.S. legislatures. Placement opportunities are available locally, statewide, and nationally.
Judicial externship opportunities include working under the supervision of a judge in the U.S. District Courts, U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, U.S. Immigration Court, or Nevada State Courts. Previous government and public interest externships include placement in the following agencies: Clark County District Attorney, Clark County Legal Services, Clark County Public Defender, Clark County School District Office of Compliance and Monitoring, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Public Defender, Gaming Control Board, Henderson City Attorney, Las Vegas City Attorney, National Labor Relations Board, Nevada and U.S. legislatures, Nevada Attorney General, Nevada Immigrant Resource Project, Nevada Legal Services, Senior Citizen Law Center, U.S. Attorney, U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, UNLV’s General Counsel’s Office, and Washoe County Family Law Self-Help Center.
Other Service Learning Courses
After completing their Community Service Program requirement in the first year, many students are eager to continue to provide service to the community. In response to this, several faculty members have developed courses that include a field component that gives students opportunities to apply their knowledge and learn more about the various contexts in which that knowledge can be used to provide service.
“Legal Education & Assistance to Prisoners” (LEAP) is a course in which students learn about state and federal post-conviction remedies and family law and, in the field component of the course, provide training for inmates who work in the law libraries at several state correctional facilities in Southern Nevada. Students meet monthly with inmates to determine their training needs, conduct workshops, and develop self-help materials for use by inmates in the prison law libraries.
“Public Lands and Natural Resources Field Seminar” focuses on the application of law and science to a variety of natural resource issues on public lands in the desert region. An essential aspect of the course is a six-day field trip to the Kaibab Plateau, near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. On the trip, students visit areas on public land where significant legal issues have arisen concerning the management of natural resources, including old growth forests, rangelands, the Colorado River, and critical endangered species habitat. At each location, students discuss resource management and legal issues with federal/ state land managers and, in some cases, representatives of the environmentalist community and resource industries.
“The Criminalization of Immigrants: A Service Learning Response” explores the intersection of immigration and criminal law by adopting a service learning pedagogy through which students partner with public defenders from throughout the state to produce a manual that attorneys and judges in Nevada can use when faced with noncitizen defendants. The manual will identify Nevada crimes that have immigration consequences, will explore strategies for ameliorating or avoiding these consequences, and will identify needed reform to Nevada statutes or practice when they result in unfair consequences to the noncitizen.
“Land Use and Community Economic Development” explores community economic development with a special emphasis on affordable housing, the land use approval process, and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area. Students write research papers, prepare materials, and work with local organizations on economic development and land use issues. Students work with local government agencies and local developers to research models of providing affordable housing to teachers. Students also work with a non-profit housing advocacy group researching consumer credit issues (around housing finance) or methods to increase the supply of affordable housing.