Course Description:
The Seminar will provide both an overview of the problems faced by the indigent and subordinated as well as offering an opportunity to enhance the lawyering skills you will need to assist clients in the future. The class will also discuss the public interest problems confronting low income, multi-ethnic communities, including the availability of legal services (or the lack thereof). Throughout the semester, we will look at a variety of approaches to dealing with these public interest law problems including litigation, legislative, administrative, media work, community organizing and coalition building. The Seminar will also offer some introductory training in lawyering skills including interviewing, counseling and theory development. As part of the Seminar, each student will complete a written project trying to develop creative strategies for dealing with some problem area involving public interest law. We encourage students to work in pairs on these projects. Potential project areas might include child abuse, civil rights, consumer law, domestic violence, education law, elderly law, employment law, homelessness, housing, human rights, immigration law, and juvenile rights. These projects can fulfill the Supervised Analytical Writing Requirement. There is no final examination for this course, rather the class will be graded based on your Seminar participation and your presentation and written project.
