Criminal Appellate Defender Clinic

L02.2501/2502 Professor Rosemary Herbert Professor Eunice Lee Open to 3L and 2L students Maximum of 8-10 students		Spring semester 5 credits* Pre-requisites/Co-requisites: Criminal Procedure** (Also see "Qualifications for Applicants")

Introduction
Students in the Criminal Appellate Defender Clinic will represent a client appealing his or her felony conviction to the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department. This Clinic is conducted in conjunction with the Office of the Appellate Defender (OAD). (For more information about OAD, go to www.appellatedefender.org.) The Clinic seminar consists of lectures and exercises dealing with a variety of aspects of criminal appellate defense. At the same time, students will write an appellate brief on behalf of an OAD client under the supervision of an OAD supervising attorney.  

Course Description

Client Representation
Students will represent a client appealing his or her felony conviction to the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department. Under the active supervision of an OAD supervising attorney, each student will read the hearing or trial record, research and select issues, and prepare the opening appellate brief. In addition, each student will communicate with his or her client and, where feasible, visit the client.

While preparation and filing of the reply brief and the oral argument for the case will occur after the end of the semester, where possible, students will have the opportunity - on a voluntary basis - to write the reply brief and orally argue the case.

The Seminar
The seminar will meet weekly at the Office of the Appellate Defender, 11 Park Place, Suite 1601, New York, NY, on Wednesdays from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. On occasion, there will be Clinic activities that will take place outside of this time slot. Students will be given as much notice as possible of any changes in class schedule.

The seminar portion of the class will cover three broad areas: (1) the lawyering and counseling skills necessary to represent an indigent client appealing his or her conviction; (2) substantive elements of criminal appellate advocacy (standards of review, the preservation doctrine, harmless error analysis, and remedies); and (3) brief-writing skills (including analysis of a record, issue selection, and developing a theory of the case). There will also be seminar sessions dealing with oral advocacy, guilty pleas, and other types of advocacy an appellate attorney can engage in on behalf of his or her client (for example, parole advocacy, addressing prison-related problems, immigration matters, social work assistance).

Qualifications for Applicants
Criminal Procedure is a pre- or co-requisite. Evidence is also preferred as a pre- or co-requisite.

The Office of the Appellate Defender represents indigent defendants in cases from Bronx and New York Counties. To avoid any possible conflict of interest, students who are likely to have pending applications for employment with either the Bronx or New York County (Manhattan) District Attorneys’ Offices may not be able to participate in the clinic.

Application Process
Please submit the standard Clinic application, resume and unofficial transcript, using CAMS, the online application system. There will be no interview. If you have any questions regarding the application process, please contact Michelle Williams at (212) 998-6439 or michelle.williams@nyu.edu. For other questions, contact either Rosemary Herbert (rherbert@appellatedefender.org, 212-402-4115) or Eunice Lee (elee@appellatedefender.org, 212-402-4111). 

Student Contacts

In addition, if you would like to speak with a 2008 CADC student, please contact one of the people listed below:

              Julie Ehrlich                                 julie.ehrlich@nyu.edu                             

              Ronnie Chowdhary                    ranbir@nyu.edu 

              Tamara A Crepet                        tamara.crepet@law.nyu.edu                      

              Ahmed Ghappour                       aghappour@gmail.com          

              Tarek Khanachet                        tmk251@nyu.edu          

              Chase Stuart                              chasestuart@gmail.com

              Kartik Venguswamy                   knv207@nyu.edu

* 5 credits includes 3 clinical credits and 2 academic seminar credits.
** Evidence is also preferred as a pre- or co-requisite.