Public Interest Law Concentration

This seminar focuses on the evolving legal framework for holding businesses to account for activities that negatively impact human rights. The course is largely structured around the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) which were approved by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011. The UNGPs have created an evolving normative framework that aims to prevent and remedy human rights abuses committed by companies and has become an important area of legal compliance work. The seminar is designed to provide students with a general overview of the general framework established by the UNGPs and will include coverage of: the international human rights legal regime; the development of international, domestic and voluntary corporate initiatives designed to bring corporations in line with human rights norms; the best practices for corporations to incorporate measures to assure respect of human rights; the potential liability of corporations for alleged violations of international human rights law; and the available judicial and nonjudicial remedies for vindicating violations of these rights. The course focuses on both the legal, practical, and political challenges that all stakeholders face in this new area of emerging international law while building the skills needed by a professional in this field. This course may be offered every other year.

This course examines statutes that Congress has enacted to protect civil rights.  Topics addressed include the right to equal educational opportunity; the right to vote; discrimination in the administration of justice; the rights of language minorities and immigrants; and enforcement of rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This course may be offered every other year.

The theme of this seminar is the manner in which tensions related to the division of power and control play out between children and parents, children and the state, and parents and the state in a wide variety of contexts. Topics include, but are not limited to, the right of parents to make medical, educational, and other decisions about their children without state intervention; First Amendment rights of children; rights of young children in school; children’s economic relationship within the family; child abuse and neglect; child custody; corporal punishment; and the nature and scope of constitutional rights and privileges in delinquency proceedings.

This course addresses the historical and contemporary relationship between criminal and immigration law. Intended for students interested in practicing Immigration or Criminal Law, the course will explore how various pleas, sentences, and convictions impact foreign nationals. The course covers criminal grounds of deportability and inadmissibility, categorization of crimes under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), types of immigration relief available to foreign nationals with criminal history, and postconviction relief for foreign nationals in criminal court. The course is practice oriented. Students should come away with an understanding of how criminal attorneys should handle cases involving noncitizens. It also will provide a toolbox for immigration attorneys for advising criminal defense attorneys in criminal proceedings, for practice before the immigration courts, and for seeking postconviction relief in criminal court.

Examines the legal issues that arise in the various stages of criminal adjudication, including standards for pretrial release, prosecutorial discretion, the right to a speedy trial, discovery, pleading, restraints on publicity, the right of confrontation, jury composition, sentencing, double jeopardy, and collateral attack. When appropriate, the effect of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure are studied. Prerequisites or corequisites: Criminal Procedure I and Evidence. Please check the most recent course registration information to determine if this course meets the Experiential Education/Professional Skills Requirement.

This clinical component enables students to handle aspects of the actual prosecution or defense of misdemeanors in the state District Courts. Students spend 15 hours per week handling cases under the supervision of assistant district attorneys or public defenders. By court rule, this clinic is limited to students in their last year of law school. Students must keep at least one full day, and preferably two, clear for their fieldwork, since they must be available an entire day to handle cases. Students will submit weekly journals, describing and reflecting on their experiences in the field, and will meet in a series of seminars with the course instructor and/or the Clinical Director to explore the relationship between the principles covered in the substantive class and the students’ fieldwork. NOTE: ELIGIBILITY FOR SOME PLACEMENTS IN THIS COURSE, AND FOR SJC RULE 3:03 CERTIFICATION, IS DEPENDENT ON SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF A BACKGROUND CHECK. This course satisfies the Experiential Education/Professional Skills Requirement.

Examines the legal protections and status of people with disabilities. The course explores issues relevant to the workplace and to access to public accommodations and services. Particular focus is on rights conferred under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and Massachusetts antidiscrimination laws. Please check the most recent course registration information to determine if this course meets the professional skills requirements. This course may be offered in alternative years.

The course addresses partner-violence issues in the legal system, including the consequences for children, focusing, initially, on those issues relating to civil orders of protection; prosecution and defense of criminal charges; and divorce, custody, and child support, along with the role of the Department of Children and Families. In the final third of the course, students choose other legal issues in partner-violence cases to present to the class. Presentations in earlier years have included such topics as immigration, cyberstalking, religious law, housing, and evidence issues that are significant in partner-violence cases. Students will be encouraged to consider how issues of race, class, ethnicity, and gender affect the analyses.

This course deals with the employer/employee relationship when the employee is not represented by a labor union, but rather seeks protection under state or federal legislation. Among the topics are legal restraints on employer screening of employees, wage and hour legislation, occupational health and safety legislation, restrictions on employee discharge, employment discrimination, retirement, and other employee workplace rights and protections. This course may be offered every other year.

This course introduces students to policies, statutes, and common law addressing our relationship with the natural environment. Students study the major federal environmental statutes, including the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the Federal Superfund Act, among others. The class explores key provisions of those acts, case law interpreting their applicability, and their impacts on environmental conditions, economics, and politics. In addition, students discuss legal and political theories of environmental protection, its constitutional grounding, and its administration by the US Environmental Protection Agency and other federal and state agencies. Please check the most recent course registration information to determine if this course satisfies the Experiential Education/Professional Skills Requirement.

Students in this clinical component spend 10 (2-credit) or 15 (3-credit) hours each week working at government agencies, private firms, or public interest organizations in the area of environmental law. Students will submit weekly journals, describing and reflecting on their experiences in the field, and will meet in a series of seminars with the course instructor and/or the Clinical Director to explore the relationship between the principles covered in the substantive class and the students’ fieldwork. This course satisfies the Experiential Education/Professional Skills Requirement.

Surveys many legal problems of the family. Students taking this course will learn about the effect of the constitution on reproductive activity and family formation and structure. They also will learn about procedures for family dissolution, custody, and support, regardless of whether there has been a marriage or not. In addition, students will learn about the various ways in which members of families can use contracts to create their own relations and the settings in which the state does not permit self-determination. Finally, the course explores the lawyer’s role in family counseling and litigation. One or more written exercises are sometimes required during the course, in addition to a final examination.

Students in this clinical component spend 10 (2-credit) or 15 (3-credit) hours a week in settings that expose them to the practice of family law. Most placements will be in settings such as legal services offices, including New England Law’s in-house clinic, in which students will handle family law cases pursuant to Supreme Judicial Court Rule 3:03, the student practice rule. Since most legal services offices take family law cases primarily where there are issues of domestic violence, the family law placements typically will expose students to issues covered in the Domestic Violence and Family Law courses. Settings beyond legal services offices will be appropriate placements as well, as long as the substantive work in the field will expose students to issues covered in the courses recognized as the corequisites/prerequisites. Students will submit weekly journals, describing and reflecting on their experiences in the field, and will meet in a series of seminars with the course instructor and/or the Clinical Director to explore the relationship between the principles covered in the substantive class and the students’ fieldwork. Prerequisite/corequisites include Domestic Violence and Family Law. This course satisfies the Experiential Education/Professional Skills Requirement.

Examines the speech, press, and religion clauses of the First Amendment. Speech clause topics include incitement to illegal conduct; defamation; obscenity; hate speech; commercial speech; student speech; use of public property for expressive activities; and symbolic conduct. Religion-clause topics include prayer in public schools; displays of religious symbols on public property; government aid to religious schools; religious exemptions; and government accommodation of religious exercise. This course may be offered every other year.

This clinical course gives students an opportunity to participate in and to analyze the work of a lawyer in a government setting. Participants will spend 12 hours per week working in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office under the supervision of assistant attorneys general or another government agency. Students may assist with various aspects of litigation, such as research, investigation, pleadings, discovery, motions, trials, and appeals. Students must attend a weekly, two-hour class that will explore the skills required in representing the government as well as such policy issues as defining the “public interest” and the conflicts between representing the public and defending the government. NOTE: ELIGIBILITY FOR THIS COURSE IS DEPENDENT ON SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF A BACKGROUND CHECK. Prerequisites/corequisites include Evidence or Trial Practice. This course satisfies the Experiential Education/Professional Skills Requirement.

This course takes a close look at federal and state fair-housing law by examining its statutory bases; constitutional challenges posed by the First Amendment; issues involving coverage, proof, and liability; and the various enforcement mechanisms and remedies available. The scope of the course is broad insofar as fair-housing law prohibits discrimination in private-sector and public-sector housing on the grounds of physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, receipt of public assistance, age, and familial status (families with children under 18), as well as race, color, national origin/ancestry, and religion. The course also considers current patterns of residential segregation and discrimination in housing and mortgage lending, the effectiveness of fair-housing law, and how fair-housing requirements interact with such developments as local and community opposition to affordable housing or to group homes for persons with a disability. The course is recommended both for students interested in civil rights and public interest law and for those intending to pursue careers in the real estate or mortgage lending industries. Please check the most recent course registration information to determine if this course meets the Experiential Education/Professional Skills requirement. This course may be offered every other year.

Examines the international law principles that have been applied to indigenous peoples and how indigenous peoples have been treated by international organizations and by the domestic laws of different nations. Topics addressed include property rights; economic development; religious and cultural preservation rights; and the right to self-determination. Please check the most recent course registration information to determine if this course meets the Experiential Education/Professional Skills requirement. This course may be offered every other year.

The objective of the course is to provide the student with a general knowledge of immigration laws and procedures in the United States. Focus is on the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the specific procedures established for the processing of affirmative applications for status, as well as defending against removal. The course covers the constitutional authority of the federal government to legislate and regulate immigration, nonimmigrant and immigrant visas (including family and employment based), grounds of inadmissibility and deportability, and defenses against removal. It also touches on asylum law and issues impacting those present without documentation. The course is practice oriented, with theory grounding and contextualizing aspects of the course, as relevant.

Students in this clinical component will work in law offices or agencies that provide representation to aliens involved in proceedings before the INS or in court cases originating from such proceedings. Students will spend 10 (2-credit) or 15 (3-credit) hours per week in the field, assisting attorneys who are specialists in immigration law. Students will submit weekly journals, describing and reflecting on their experiences in the field, and will meet in a series of seminars with the course instructor and/or the Clinical Director to explore the relationship between the principles covered in the substantive class and the students’ fieldwork. This course satisfies the Experiential Education/Professional Skills Requirement.

Explores the primary methods by which the state defines and controls juvenile delinquency in our society. Through the study of case law, students are exposed to the history and philosophy of the juvenile justice system and to the concept of juvenile delinquency. In particular, focus is given to the unique juvenile court, its roles as a legal system and as a social welfare system, and a comparative analysis of juvenile law and process. Also explored are dependency, neglect, and diversion programs.

Focuses primarily on regulation by the National Labor Relations Board and the federal courts of union/management relations in private industry. Much time is devoted to gaining an understanding of the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act. Specific topics surveyed include union organization tactics, including use of company and union propaganda, representation elections, determination of bargaining units, contract negotiations, arbitration proceedings, strikes, boycotts, pickets, the rights of striking employees, and a union’s duty to employees. This course may be offered every other year.

This class examines the relationship between residential property owners and their lessees, and focuses on Massachusetts law and practice. The course takes an in-depth look at issues such as the formation of the landlord-tenant relationship, including terms of tenancies (for years and at will), required and prohibited terms of a rental agreement, payments at the start of a tenancy (paying close attention to rules governing security deposits), tenant protections and landlord obligations related to rental unit conditions (implied warranty of habitability, covenant of quiet enjoyment, and state sanitary code), termination of tenancies (with a special focus on summary process evictions), protections for tenants in foreclosed buildings, housing discrimination, homelessness as a consequence of eviction, rental housing affordability, and landlords’ tort liability.

This one-semester course serves as an introduction to civil litigation. Students attend a 2-hour weekly class and perform 16 hours per week of clinical work, working on civil cases through the Clinical Law Office or other legal services offices, such as Greater-Boston Legal Services. Students represent clients under Rule 3:03 of the Supreme Judicial Court, the student practice rule, and may assume responsibility for all phases of cases they handle. Students meets on a weekly basis with their assigned supervisor to discuss progress and strategy on the student’s cases, and are responsible for handling cases until the end of the examination period. The major objective of the course is to develop a conceptual framework within which students can understand and evaluate their own experience in practice, both during the course and in future practice. The skills studied include client interviewing, case planning, investigation/discovery, client counseling, negotiation, argument, and the presentation of evidence. In addition to providing the opportunity to develop skills, the course examines institutional and ethical problems that arise in the student’s practice. Written work includes short papers and an examination. Prerequisites/corequisites include Evidence or Trial Practice. This course satisfies the Experiential Education Requirement.

Explores the interrelations between law and mental disabilities. Topics include the insanity defense, use of psychiatric expert testimony, competence to stand trial, use of indeterminate sentencing for “dangerous” offenders and predicting “dangerousness” civil commitment, rights of mental patients, use of psychotropic medication, and psychiatrist/patient privilege. This course may be offered every other year.

This course will examine nonprofit organizations and the sector in which they operate. The course will focus on the legal framework governing the operation of the nonprofit organizations, including issues of choice of form, governing bodies, and regulation of solicitations. The course also will survey the basic federal income and state property tax issues relevant to operation of the nonprofit organization. These issues include qualification for tax exemption, filing requirements, engaging in commercial activities, and the distinction between public charities and private foundations. This course may be offered every other year.

Focuses on how the legal system treats victims of sexual violence and explores strategies for change. The class explores the historical development of the crime of rape and related criminal sexual violence laws. The class then examines modern evidentiary principles and trial strategies employed in sexual assault cases, including “special rules” applicable only to sexual assault cases, such as “rape shield laws” and “fresh complaint testimony.” The course ends with an exploration of strategies for change, focusing on particular classes of victims, including victims of domestic violence, sexual violence, and children. This course may be offered every other year.

Special education law governs the delivery of education and related services to students with special needs. Through a review of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (federal law) and M.G.L.c. 71B (state law), as well as the study of case law, topics such as the determination of eligibility for special education services; the provision of a free and appropriate public education; the evaluation and development of an individualized education program (IEP); the composition and role of a student’s team; and student discipline will be examined. Practical issues related to the representation of school districts and parents of students in need of special education services will be explored through simulated IEP team meeting and due process hearing exercises. This course may be offered every other year.