Year-Long Clinics
To apply for all clinics, please use the Clinic Application and Matching System (CAMS).
NYU School of Law offers the following year-long clinics. Each of these clinics is 14 credits and therefore accounts for roughly half of a student's courseload for the academic year. (Exceptions are the Brennan Center Public Policy Advocacy, Federal Defender and Offender Reentry Clinics, which carry 10 credits each; and the International Human Rights Clinic, which carries 12 credits.) Please select from the links at the left to learn more about each clinic.
Brennan Center Public Policy Advocacy Clinic
This clinic studies public policy advocacy in the context of the Brennan Center's work. Strategies and skills the clinic focuses on include: conducting policy analysis and research; engaging in coalition building and organizing; collecting and analyzing opinion data; drafting and negotiating laws and rules; conducting lobbying; developing public education plans and using media effectively; fundraising; and running a nonprofit organization. All students will do fieldwork at the Brennan Center, in one of the Center's main program areas: Democracy (campaign finance reform, elections and voting rights, fair courts, and responsive government) and Justice (access to justice, economic justice, criminal justice, and liberty and national security).
Civil Rights Clinic
Over a full, intensive year, students in the Civil Rights Clinic handle litigation involving police accountability, most frequently racial profiling cases but also first amendment and due process in criminal justice and police matters. The clinic and cases are supervised by Prof. Claudia Angelos of the full-time faculty and Chris Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, the New York affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union. Students handle their cases out of their offices at the NYCLU, where they act as members of the legal department staff. The clinic also develops the students’ litigation skills through a seminar program that includes a full trial advocacy component and that uses the students’ own cases as the basis for their study of litigation and other strategies for change, and for their critical examination of the institutions that their clients are involved with.
Criminal and Community Defense Clinic
This clinic, taught by Professor Anthony Thompson, explores the responsibilities and challenges involved in providing holistic and community-based public defense. The course focuses on individual representation, examining client-centered advocacy and explores methods for giving clients voice in the criminal justice system. In addition, it explores the various forms of advocacy available to community-oriented defenders, such as media advocacy, community advocacy and legislative advocacy. Students will be assigned to work in a neighborhood-based defender office where they will engage in activities related to the representation of individuals charged in the criminal justice system. Students will also work closely with defenders and community activists developing and facilitating their collaborative efforts to exercise greater control over criminal justice issues as they affect low income and of-color communities.
Employment and Housing Discrimination Clinic
In this clinic, taught by Professor Laura Sager, students represent plaintiffs in state and federal court on claims of race, sex, national origin and disability discrimination. Students meet with clients, draft pleadings, discovery requests and motions, take depositions, and appear in court for hearings or trials. They also participate in seminar discussions of substantive and procedural issues related to the clinic's cases, and in simulation exercises to develop written and oral litigation skills.
Equal Justice and Capital Defender Clinic
This clinic, taught by Professors Bryan Stevenson, Anthony Amsterdam and Randy Susskind, provides representation to death row prisoners in Alabama postconviction proceedings, juveniles sentenced to life imprisonment without parole and assists in the development and implementation of impact litigation through the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. Students take the clinic for 14 credits and spend a substantial portion of the semester in Alabama conducting research, case investigation, developing mitigation, interviewing clients, witnesses, jurors and family members, and preparing legal pleadings which are filed in state and federal court.
Federal Defender Clinic
In this clinic, students represent indigent misdemeanor defendants in Federal Magistrate Court in the Eastern District of New York in all stages of the litigation, from arraignment to hearings, pleas, and trials. Additional fieldwork includes assisting attorneys at the Federal Defenders of New York in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York in their representation of indigent felony defendants.
Immigrant Rights Clinic
This clinic provides direct representation to immigrants and community-based organizations through agency and federal court litigation, legislative advocacy, and community organizing support.
International Human Rights Clinic
The International Human Rights Clinic explores multifaceted approaches to human rights advocacy in both domestic and international settings. The seminar emphasizes practical skills, including litigating human rights claims in domestic and international forums; investigating and documenting human rights violations; advocating before United Nations, regional, and national human rights bodies; and engaging with global and local human rights campaigns. Students also address questions of ethical, political and professional accountability related to human rights work. Fieldwork consists of projects undertaken for: 1) individual clients; 2) human rights organizations in the United States and abroad; and 3) intergovernmental human rights experts and bodies (including the United Nations). Taught by Professors Smita Narula and Meg Satterthwaite.
Juvenile Defender Clinic
This clinic represents young persons accused of felony offenses in juvenile delinquency proceedings in the New York Family Court.
Law, Organizing and Social Change Clinic
This clinic trains law students to perform diverse professional work in the service of a community and its members. By partnering with Make the Road New York, www.maketheroadny.org, a membership organization of more than 4,500 low-income and recent immigrant New Yorkers, students will learn how: 1) to envision and implement innovative legal work which supports and sustains a community and its organizing; and 2) to promote community autonomy and self-determination through grassroots organizing, public policy advocacy and strategic litigation.
Offender Reentry Clinic
The Offender Reentry Clinic focuses on individual assistance to clients, as well as policy reform aimed at facilitating the offender reentry process of individuals being released from prison. Students enrolled in the Reentry Clinic will be engaged in litigation for those who are denied employment licenses by the New York Department of State. In addition, students will also provided workshops in the New York City Community training individuals on how to represent themselves in these hearings. In addition, we will become familiar with the range of legal restrictions and practical hurdles facing individuals with a criminal record, as well as their families and communities. On a philosophical level, we will consider the delicate balance between promoting public safety and stigmatizing people who have paid their debt to society. In addition, we will explore the family and community-based effects of incarceration and reentry, as well as the role of the media in shaping criminal justice policy.