Child Advocacy Clinic

Professor Theo Liebmann, Attorney-in-Charge
Maximum Enrollment: 8 Students

Child Advocacy Clinic students learn the facets of client advocacy through the challenging experience of representing children in abuse and neglect cases, and special immigrant juvenile matters. Students advocate in New York City and Nassau Family Courts on behalf of children in cases where the allegations range from physical and sexual abuse to educational neglect, abandonment and inadequate supervision. In court Clinic students advocate vigorously for their clients in all aspects of the practice, including picking up cases at arraignment, advocating at hearings and trials, engaging in motion practice and formulating dispositional plans. Outside of court students maintain regular contact with their clients, investigate the factual allegations of neglect or abuse involved on their court cases, formulate realistic and compassionate plans for clients and their families, and work closely with mental health professionals, caseworkers, teachers and foster parents to ensure their clients’ needs are being met.

Community & Economic Development Clinic

Professor Serge Martinez, Attorney-in-Charge
Maximum Enrollment: 6 Students

Students in the Community and Economic Development Clinic provide transactional (non-litigation) assistance to nonprofits, community-based organizations and micro-enterprises in low-income communities in and around Nassau County,with a preference for clients that contribute to social and economic justice. Clients include newly-forming organizations requiring start-up assistance and more mature entities that need help in connection with the more complex issues arising from organizational success and growth. The Clinic’s work includes: counseling concerning choice-of-entity decisions, incorporation, application for recognition of tax-exempt status, drafting/review of contracts, zoning matters, negotiations, support for community organizing, legal research, community education and other needs of our clients. Students also examine the special ethical issues that are present in group and entity representation.

Criminal Justice Clinic

Professor Tigran W. Eldred, Attorney-in-Charge
Maximum Enrollment: 8 Students

Students in the Criminal Justice Clinic represent indigent clients charged with misdemeanors in Nassau County District Court and Queens County Criminal Court. Clinic interns provide the entire range of legal representation, from initial interview to sentencing. Court room advocacy includes arraignments, bail arguments, bench conferences, evidentiary hearings, oral arguments on motions, bench and jury trials, plea dispositions and sentencings. Lawyering skills practiced outside the court room include interviewing, counseling, fact and crime scene investigation, negotiation with assistant district attorneys, and researching and drafting pleadings,motions and other memoranda. Students may also represent clients in related proceedings including parole revocation, school suspension, and Department of Motor Vehicle hearings where these hearings arise from the facts of the criminal case. In order to perform their court responsibilities, students must keep Tuesday and Thursday mornings (9 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.) free from all other obligations.

Law Reform Advocacy Clinic

Professor Stefan H. Krieger, Attorney-in-Charge
Maximum Enrollment: 10 Students

In this Clinic, students handle a wide variety of housing, community development, and public interest cases for low-income individuals and community organizations in areas such as fair housing and exclusionary zoning, housing rehabilitation, predatory lending, and rent gouging. The Clinic may also work with the other clinical programs on law reform issues that arise out of their caseloads and affect the community. We will select cases that will have an impact for low-income individuals on Long Island, especially new immigrants. Each student will have two or three cases and will prepare and present their cases in state and federal courts, administrative agencies, and local legislatures.

The course develops lawyering skills in traditional litigation as well as administrative and legislative advocacy. In their representation of clients in actual cases, students have the opportunity to engage in interviewing and counseling, fact investigation and analysis, legal and policy analysis, negotiation, strategic-decision-making, arguments before different forums, and hearings and trials in courts and before administrative and legislative bodies. Special attention is placed on working with community organizations in developing alternative law reform strategies to address problems in their neighborhoods.

Mediation Clinic

Professor Yishai Boyarin, Attorney-in-Charge
Maximum Enrollment: 8 Students

Students in the Mediation Clinic will serve as mediators in actual cases involving small claims cases and family court matters, including custody/visitation and PINS cases. Students complete an intensive mediation training program with a NYS Court Certified Mediation Trainer. Student mediators help parties involved in a conflict to negotiate and make decisions about the conflict's outcome.The mediations take place either at the Clinic offices or on-site at a referring court or agency. Under the Clinical Instructor's supervision, students will: screen and develop cases; interview parties to a dispute and advise them about the mediation process;mediate cases in two-student teams; and, draft settlement agreements. The mission of the Mediation Clinic is not to train students to be professional mediators, rather, the mission is to teach them fundamental lawyering skills such as interviewing, counseling, negotiation, and effective problem solving, all of which are essential to every attorney's work.

Political Asylum Clinic

Professor Lauris Wren, Attorney-in-Charge
Maximum Enrollment: 8 Students

In the Political Asylum Clinic, students represent political asylum applicants in immigration proceedings before Asylum Officers, Immigration Judges, and the Board of Immigration Appeals. Our clients fled their countries because of torture or other persecution, based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. If they are granted political asylum, our clients will be able to remain in the United States, to bring their immediate family here, and one year after winning asylum, to apply for permanent residence. Our clients’ lives literally depend on the outcome of the asylum case. Students have represented clients from such countries as Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Trinidad, Albania, Chad, Peru,Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Jamaica,Tibet, India and Nepal.

Securities Arbitration Clinic

Professor Curtis Pew, Attorney-in-Charge
Maximum Enrollment: 8 Students

Working as an investment professional for three years after college made me realize two important aspects of embarking on a career path. First, you learn about your profession in school and you learn how to be a professional at work. Second, nothing is valued more than experience. At the Securities Arbitration Clinic I was able to gain professional experience in counseling clients, researching practical issues, drafting pleadings, managing a caseload and oral advocacy while subject to all of the ethical and procedural aspects of lawyering. The diversity of the clients seeking counsel from the clinic shows how vulnerable people are in this complicated arena despite their respective levels of sophistication. There has been nothing more inspiring for me than knowing that my legal education is having a profound impact on peoples’ lives. I know the experience I have acquired at the Clinic will jump-start my legal career.