Community Development and Economic Justice Clinic (formerly Neighborhood Institutions Clinic)
| L02.2554/2555 Professor David Colodny Professor Paula Galowitz Open to 3L and 2L students Maximum of 8 students |
Spring semester 5 credits* No prerequisites or co-requisites. |
Course Description
The focus of this clinic is the provision of legal services to grassroots community groups that engage in a variety of community development efforts, including the provision of social services to members as well as organizing members to advocate for improved housing and labor conditions. Students perform fieldwork with attorneys from the Community Development Project (CDP) of the Urban Justice Center, and provide legal services to CDP’s clients throughout New York City. As part of the fieldwork, students will work on both transactional matters and litigation cases.
Grassroots community groups are abundant throughout New York City, and provide critical services in the communities they serve. They are often at the forefront of identifying and addressing local issues that later become issues of national importance. This course will provide exposure to grassroots community groups, and how attorneys can support their work. Like many other organizations, community groups have a variety of legal needs relating to their formation, growth, and service to members. The transactional needs of the group itself may include assistance with forming and governing a non-profit; applying for tax exempt status; complying with non-profit, employment and tax laws; and negotiating commercial leases. Litigation typically addresses the issues facing the groups' low-income constituents and members, and supports their organizing efforts around these issues.
The Community Development Project (CDP) at the Urban Justice Center provides an array of legal services to community groups in New York City. CDP provides legal, technical, research and policy assistance to grassroots community groups engaged in a wide range of community development efforts throughout New York City. The work of CDP is informed by the belief that real and lasting change in low-income, urban neighborhoods is often rooted in the empowerment of grassroots, community institutions. CDP’s transactional services include providing legal advice and assistance to grassroots organizations in a variety of legal areas. CDP’s litigation practice focuses on tenants’ rights, workers’ rights, consumers’ rights, and civil rights. CDP works with many neighborhood institutions throughout New York City, such as the Chinese Staff and Workers Association, the National Mobilization Against Sweatshops, the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, Make the Road New York, and numerous tenants’ associations. More information about CDP’s work can be found on the Urban Justice Center website.
Fieldwork
The fieldwork for this clinic will be primarily or entirely conducted with CDP. Students in this clinic will have the opportunity to be involved in both a transactional matter and a litigation matter. In the transactional cases, students will offer legal advice and assistance to grassroots organizations in a variety of areas, such as incorporating an organization, drafting corporate governance documents, or applying for tax exempt status. In addition to obtaining drafting experience, students will have the opportunity to counsel and work directly with organizational clients.
In the litigation matters, CDP uses litigation as a way to support grassroots organizing efforts in New York City and works with their community partners to develop litigation that comes out of the issues facing their low-income constituents and members. Students will participate in a litigation matter, which will likely be in the area of workers’ rights or tenants’ rights. The workers’ rights cases typically involve minimum wage and overtime violations, workplace discrimination, and retaliatory discharge. Plaintiffs in these cases could be domestic workers, restaurant workers, spa workers and garment factory workers. The plaintiffs are members of such grassroots groups as Domestic Workers United and Chinese Staff and Workers Association. The tenants’ rights cases involve representing tenant associations organized by community-based organizations in litigation to combat landlord abandonment, and correct housing conditions. Students’ litigation work would likely entail joining an existing team of lawyers working on an ongoing case, and provide an opportunity to meet with clients, strategize with co-counsel, draft documents, and prepare for and observe depositions and court proceedings.
Students will work out of the offices of CDP. Direct interaction with the grassroots organizations’ staff and members will be an integral component of the fieldwork.
The Seminar
The seminar will meet weekly on Tuesday from 4:00 – 5:50 p.m. Classes will be participatory in nature, and students will be expected to give presentations, discuss their fieldwork and engage in simulations intended to sharpen practical lawyering skills.
The seminar will cover the following topics: introduction to the work of grassroots organizations; the non-profit incorporation process; corporate governance of non-profit organizations, such as by-laws and boards of directors; the tax-exempt recognition process (501(c)(3) status); housing code enforcement; employment and labor laws most often affecting low-wage workers, including wage-hour violations and rights to organize; organizing and the legal issues commonly implicated (e.g. SLAPP litigation); and ethical issues arising from representation of grassroots community groups and their members.
Application Procedure
Students interested in applying for the clinic should submit the standard application, resume, and transcript online through CAMS. Selection of students is not based on interviews. Professors Colodny and Galowitz will meet with applicants in small groups in order to provide a more complete description of the clinic and to answer questions. Please contact Dulcie Ingleton at (212) 998-6446 or via email after you submit your application to sign up for a meeting time.
Student Contacts
Students who wish to know more about the Community Development and Economic Justice Clinic (formerly the Neighborhood Institutions Clinic) may speak with the following students who are in the clinic this semester or were students in the Spring, 2008 semester:
| Spring 2009
Tom Carroll Katherine Ghilain Angela Gius Michael Mastman Sally Newman Cara Peterman Rebecca Weinstein Benjamin Wiegand Shannon Wilson Turquoise Young |
Spring 2008 Edget Betru Hasani Caraway Brandilyn Dumas Alanna Franco Shevani Jaisingh Anna Purinton Gregory Raiten Adam Stolorow Ian Vandewalker George Wukoson |
Students should also feel free to contact the professors who will teach the clinic. Professor Colodny can be reached at (646) 459-3006 or by email. Professor Galowitz can be reached at (212) 998-6430 or by email.
* 5 credits includes 3 clinical credits and 2 academic seminar credits.
http://www.law.nyu.edu//academics/clinics/semester/commdeveconjustice/index.htm