Law School Catalog | 2006-2008

Clinical Education Programs

The School of Law offers twelve clinical programs. The Transnational Worker Rights Clinic and Criminal Defense Clinic are available in the fall semester, spring semester, and summer session. The Actual Innocence, Capital Punishment, Children's Rights, Domestic Violence, Immigration Law, and Mediation Clinics operate during the fall and spring semesters. The Mental Health, Housing Law, and Juvenile Justice Clinics are available in the spring semester only. The Environmental Law Clinic is available in the fall semester only.

Actual Innocence Clinic. Under faculty supervision, students investigate cases from inmates in Texas and elsewhere who claim that they are actually innocent of the offenses for which they are incarcerated. When a case passes a rigorous screening process, students participate in the exoneration process. Students are also required to meet once a week to analyze topics in actual innocence law and procedure and to discuss clinic cases. In addition to selecting Law 397C during registration, students must also complete a short application form in order to enroll in the clinic. All credit is awarded on the pass/fail basis.

Capital Punishment Clinic. The Capital Punishment Clinic gives law students practical experience in capital litigation. Students are supervised by attorneys who represent indigent inmates on Texas' death row. Students review transcripts; interview clients; interview other potential witnesses, including jurors; identify and obtain social history records; and undertake other kinds of legal research and writing.

In addition to Law 497C, students in the clinic register for Law 278R, which focuses on the intricate doctrines that have developed since the Supreme Court "constitutionalized" capital punishment law. The clinic and other coursework expose students to both the theoretical and the practical sides of death penalty law.

Children's Rights Clinic. Texas law requires an attorney ad litem to be appointed to represent children in all cases in which the state or an authorized agency intervenes in an existing family unit. Most frequently this occurs in cases of alleged child abuse or neglect. When litigation is pending, the legal status of all children in the custody of the state must be reviewed until a final decision is rendered. Further, an attorney ad litem may be appointed for a child any time the court forms the opinion that the child's interest will not be fully represented by the attorneys for other parties to a lawsuit. These discretionary appointments are made in a variety of contexts, but especially in custody disputes between parents or other relatives.

The law school's Children's Rights Clinic (CRC) is appointed ad litem in many such cases in Travis County. Two full-time attorneys supervise students in the CRC; each student is assigned to several cases. In addition, a scheduled classroom component is designed to develop the substantive knowledge and procedural skills necessary for students to handle their caseloads.

Students who take part in the CRC in the fall or spring semester register for two sections of Law 397C. All credit is awarded on the pass/fail basis. Students must have completed forty-three semester hours in law to be certified to appear in the trial court; there are no other prerequisites.

Criminal Defense Clinic. Clinic students, supervised by skilled practitioners, represent indigent misdemeanor defendants in Travis County. Typical offenses include DWI, theft, drug possession, assault, and prostitution. Students are the "first chair" attorney; supervisors guide them and sit "second chair" during court proceedings. Students arrange jail release, interview clients and witnesses, litigate pretrial issues, negotiate with prosecutors, and try cases before judges and juries. For appeals, students review transcripts, write briefs, and present oral arguments.

The classroom component emphasizes the fundamentals of criminal defense. The simulation component, which includes videotaping, emphasizes negotiation and trial skills. In the fall and spring semesters, students register for Law 397C and 397D; in the summer session, they register for Law 397C and 297D. All credit is awarded on the pass/fail basis. Participants must have completed forty-three semester hours in law and may not be on scholastic probation.

Domestic Violence Clinic. Students in this clinic represent victims of domestic violence in such areas as divorce, child custody and visitation, housing, and procurement of protective orders. Classroom work introduces matters relevant to civil domestic violence cases: safety planning, intake, review of community resources, case logistics, and temporary orders. Case preparation and trial issues are also discussed. Students present their cases in class and discuss reforms that would help them provide stronger legal representation.

Students register for Law 397C and 397D. All credit is awarded on the pass/fail basis. Students must have completed forty-three semester hours in law.

Environmental Law Clinic. In this clinic, students work with citizens of several low-income communities in Travis and surrounding counties to help them improve the quality of their water and wastewater systems. A variety of legal and financial obstacles prevent these communities from obtaining improved services, so clinic students work closely with faculty members and local attorneys to provide legal services and guidance. Students perform a variety of tasks, including consulting with and counseling community members; preparing letters, legal memoranda, and other documents; meeting with public and private officials; and organizing and attending public meetings.

The clinic meets for two hours a week for the first six weeks of the semester and less frequently throughout the rest of the term. In addition, students must complete eight hours of clinical work a week. All credit is awarded on the pass/fail basis.

Housing Law Clinic. Students in the Housing Law Clinic represent low-income families with housing-related legal problems. The primary focus of the work is helping clients to avoid homelessness and to secure affordable housing. Thus, a good deal of the work requires representing clients in threatened evictions and in denials of public housing, subsidized housing, and Section 8 housing. Students also represent clients in other areas of landlord-tenant law, including the Fair Housing Act.

In addition, there are opportunities for real estate-related work for individuals and with community-based nonprofit groups. Students may draft deeds, earnest money contracts, affidavits of heirship, and leases.

Most cases are completed during the semester, so that the student sees his or her case from beginning to end.

Students register for Law 497C. All credit is awarded on the pass/fail basis. Participants must have completed at least forty-three semester hours in law.

Immigration Law Clinic. Clinic students represent low-income immigrants before the immigration courts and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including bond and deportation hearings, asylum, Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) cases, and other applications for discretionary relief. Students interview clients, develop case strategy, locate and prepare witnesses, and present cases before the court and the agency.

The clinic includes three hours of class a week. Classroom lectures and discussion focus on substantive immigration law, client interviewing, trial preparation and strategy, and review of ongoing cases. In addition, students spend fifteen to twenty hours a week on clinic work, including four office hours a week at the clinic. Students must travel to San Antonio for an initial DHS and court tour and for all court hearings and DHS interviews.

Because many of the clinic's clients are Spanish-speaking, fluency in Spanish is preferred but not required. Volunteer interpreters are available for non-Spanish-speaking students.

All credit is awarded on the pass/fail basis. Preference is given to students who have taken an immigration law course or seminar or who have other immigration experience. Students who wish to register for the clinic must fill out a questionnaire that is available during registration. If space is unavailable during registration, students may request to be placed on a waiting list.

Juvenile Justice Clinic. This clinic offers litigation experience and exposes students to the operations of the juvenile justice system. Under the supervision of an attorney, students serve as student attorneys with the Travis County Juvenile Public Defender's Office.

Student attorneys are assigned a caseload (four open cases at all times during the semester) for which they have primary responsibility. The student attorneys perform all investigation, interview, discovery, plea bargain, and litigation functions on their cases. Clients are indigent juveniles, aged ten to seventeen, who are charged with criminal offenses ranging from Class B misdemeanors to first-degree felonies.

Students spend about twelve to fourteen hours a week on their cases and participating in the classroom component. For two days of the semester, each student attorney also acts as the public defender at the juvenile court's daily detention hearings. The student attorney represents each juvenile who has a hearing on that day.

During the first month of the semester, the class travels to Marlin, Texas, to tour a Texas Youth Commission facility and meet with juveniles who are serving sentences at the facility. At the end of the semester, the class adopts a local middle school and speaks to seventh-grade students about constitutional rights and protections and the consequences of violating the law.

Students must also complete a videotaped mock hearing exercise. The exercise focuses on preparing for argument and examining witnesses in the context of a hearing to suppress illegally seized evidence.

Students register for Law 397C and 397D. All credit is awarded on the pass/fail basis. Students must have completed forty-three semester hours in law. Courses in criminal law and criminal procedure are recommended but not required.

Mediation Clinic. Students in this clinic mediate cases referred from small claims courts. The clinic may also accept cases from other courts and from nonprofit entities. Students interview the disputants, make arrangements for the mediation, and prepare for and conduct mediations. Students may also serve as mediators for litigation advocacy classes and for mediation competitions. Weekly class meetings examine the mediation process in depth, comparing facilitative, evaluative, and transformative approaches to mediation. In addition, students collaborate on a class project.

All students must have completed a mediation course or training program that complies with Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 154.052(a), which requires a minimum of forty classroom hours of training in dispute resolution techniques. Students who have completed Law 381S meet this statutory requirement. There are no other prerequisites. The mediation clinic is open to graduate students in other disciplines as well as law students, but enrollment is limited. All credit is awarded on the pass/fail basis.

This course is approved by the master's and doctoral portfolio programs in dispute resolution as meeting the requirement for a course in the practical application of dispute resolution processes. Additional information about the portfolio programs is given in the section "Master's and Doctoral Portfolio Programs."

Mental Health Clinic. Under faculty supervision, students in this clinic represent people confined in mental health facilities at civil commitment hearings before the Travis County Probate Court. Weekly class meetings are devoted to the substantive area of mental health law, instruction in trial advocacy, and case review. Several short written assignments are required, such as briefs and the preparation of cross examination.

Clinic students register for Law 397C and 397D on the pass/fail basis. Completion of at least forty-three semester hours in law, including Law 283, 383, or 483, is a prerequisite; preference is given to third-year students.

Transnational Worker Rights Clinic. Students in this clinic represent low-income immigrant workers in the Austin area in cases that attempt to recover unpaid wages for work performed. Depending on the requirements of each case, students may participate in worker education meetings; interview and advise clients; investigate cases and develop case strategy; negotiate with opposing parties; research legal issues; prepare legal documents, including pleadings, motions, and discovery; represent clients in litigation, administrative actions, and community-based enforcement strategies; and may also assist in developing cases for criminal prosecutions on wage fraud charges. Clinic students may also participate in international labor rights advocacy projects such as assistance with domestic litigation involving international labor rights claims, investigation of foreign labor conditions, or preparation of cases alleging international labor rights violations for regional or international labor and human rights bodies.

The work of the clinic is conducted in cooperation with the Central Texas Immigrant Worker Rights Center. Clinic students spend approximately twelve hours a week handling cases, including two scheduled office hours a week and evening meetings with workers and conferences with clients as necessary.

Weekly class meetings place the employment rights of transnational workers in a broad, interdisciplinary framework of evolving national and international labor and human rights advocacy.

The clinic is open to students who have completed the first year of law school. Students will benefit from previous coursework or experience in employment law, immigration law, international law, human rights law, low-wage working people, migrant workers or immigrant communities, and Latin American communities. Spanish fluency is preferred but not required.

Center for Public Policy Dispute Resolution

Since 1993, the Center for Public Policy Dispute Resolution has advanced the appropriate use of alternative dispute resolution processes (ADR) by Texas governmental entities and provided ADR education and research to the University community and the citizens of Texas. Law students play a major role in the center's work through internships.

To accomplish its mission, the center staff provides advice and ADR services to government entities and administers a statewide clearinghouse for information about ADR methods and public policy dispute resolution.

In its consultative capacity, the center helps government clients design, implement, administer, and evaluate ADR processes. Clients include Texas state agencies, state courts, local and regional governments, and the University community. As a result of the center's work, ADR processes such as mediation, arbitration, collaborative problem solving, and negotiated rule making are increasingly used to help disputants reach satisfactory results without litigation or administrative hearings.

The center also serves as a resource for information about ADR. Members of the center's Fellows Program, attorneys, ADR practitioners, public policy leaders, and academics provide research and technical assistance. Throughout the year, the center also provides training seminars taught by experts in the field of alternative dispute resolution.

The center administers the University's portfolio program in dispute resolution to both law and graduate students. This interdisciplinary program synthesizes theory with the practical application of ADR. Information about portfolio programs is given in the section "Master's and Doctoral Portfolio Programs."

The center staff teaches a law school seminar each year and maintains roundtable quarterly meetings of thirty state agency representatives for ADR training.

The University of Texas Law School Foundation

The University of Texas Law School Foundation was established in 1952 by Charles I. Francis, Sylvan Lang, Angus G. Wynne, Hines Baker, Dan Moody, Robert E. Hardwicke, and Hugh Lamar Stone. They foresaw that private support would be needed to supplement state funding if the law school were to achieve its potential. The foundation's objective is to establish or assist in establishing chairs, professorships, and scholarships. The scholarship endowment is now approximately $36 million; it provided more than $1.5 million in financial aid for 2004-2005. Over the years, the foundation's role and significance have grown as its assets have increased. Today, the foundation maintains half of the endowments and privately sponsored funds that support the law school. The other half is maintained by The University of Texas System on behalf of the law school The law school's endowment is one of the largest in the nation.

The University of Texas Law Alumni Association

Founded in 1939, The University of Texas Law Alumni Association operates under the nonprofit status of the Law School Foundation. The primary purposes of the association are to raise funds for the law school, to strengthen the relationship between the school and its alumni, and to assist the dean, the faculty, and the staff in their efforts to make the School of Law the best public law school in the nation.

Endowments

The University and the Law School Foundation have adopted as one of their major objectives the development of endowment funds to be used to attract and retain eminent scholars and teachers for the law school. The income from these funds is used to supplement the salaries of distinguished professors and to provide research assistance and other logistical support. Faculty members who hold endowed chairs, professorships, and research professorships are identified in chapter 6.