The law school offers students a broad and diverse range of clinics and practicums to engage in the real-world practice of law, to put their classroom learning into practice, and to develop their legal knowledge, skills, and professional identities.
Students in the Criminal Law Defense Practicum work as student defense attorneys at either the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS) or with Bar Advocates within the Hampden & Hampshire County District Courts. By court rule, students in the Practicum are authorized to practice in any District Court case, which includes a mix of both misdemeanors and felonies. Typical of the offenses litigated by students in the District Court are possession and/or distribution of controlled substances, assault and battery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, violation of a restraining order, larceny, assault and battery on a police officer, and driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. During the course of the semester, a student attorney will appear in three different sessions of the District Court: the arraignment session (in which students represent indigent defendants in bail hearings), the motion session (in which students prepare and litigate motions to suppress and motions to dismiss) and, ultimately, the trial session (in which students prepare and litigate jury and jury-waived trials.) This clinic allows students to gain substantial exposure over the course of the semester to the entire process of litigating a criminal case.
Seminar: In addition to the fieldwork as a student attorney at CPCS and with Bar Advocates, there is a classroom component which operates as a combination seminar/simulation. This part of the course is quite intensive for the first three or four weeks of the semester as well as the week prior to the start of classes. Students must attend a one-day orientation the week before classes begin, no exceptions will be made to this mandatory orientation. Following this initial training period, the class will meet at a designated time for a two-hour session on a weekly basis for the balance of the semester.
Practicum Director: Tracy Magdalene, Adjunct Professor of Law
Students in the Criminal Law Prosecution Practicum work as student assistant district attorneys within the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office. By court rule, students in the Practicum are authorized to practice in any District Court case, which includes a mix of both misdemeanors and felonies. Typical of the offenses litigated by students in the District Court are possession and/or distribution of controlled substances, domestic violence offenses including assault and battery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and violation of a restraining order, larceny, assault and battery on a police officer, and driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. During the course of the semester, a student attorney will appear in three different sessions of the District Court: the arraignment session (in which students represent the Commonwealth in bail hearings), the motion session (in which students prepare and litigate oppositions to motions to suppress and motions to dismiss) and, ultimately, the trial session (in which a student prepare and litigate jury and jury-waived trials). This Practicum allows students to gain substantial exposure over the course of the semester to the entire process of litigating a criminal case.
Seminar: In addition to the fieldwork as a student attorney within the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office, there is a classroom component which operates as a combination seminar/simulation. This part of the course is quite intensive for the first three or four weeks of the semester as well as the week prior to the start of classes. Students must attend a two day orientation the week before classes begin, no exceptions will be made to this mandatory orientation. Following this initial training period, the class will meet at a designated time for a two-hour session on a weekly basis for the balance of the semester.
Practicum Director: Mary Hiser, Adjunct Professor of LawThe Family Defense Practicum is a collaboration between Western New England School of Law and the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), the statewide public defender system. Participants in the Family Defense Practicum will spend sixteen hours a week at their jobsite working as student lawyers under the supervision of staff attorneys in the Children and Family Law (CAFL) division of CPCS. The CAFL division provides legal representation to both children and indigent parents in family regulation cases, including care and protection proceedings, actions to terminate parental rights, guardianship-of-a-minor cases, and any other child custody proceeding where the Department of Children and Families (DCF) is a party or where the court is considering granting custody to DCF. Student lawyers will have the chance to represent parents in family regulation proceedings as well as child clients who are verbal and can articulate their position. Students may also have the opportunity to represent infants and toddlers, in which the student lawyer will aid in substituting judgment for the child. Students will gain experience in interviewing clients and witnesses, legal research and writing, engaging in negotiations in the context of multiple party litigation. Further, students may also have the chance to litigate portions of hearings.
Students who participate in the Family Defense Practicum will be eligible for the CAFL-WNEU pipeline program that can expedite their admission to the CAFL panel after graduation.
Seminar: In addition to the fieldwork, Family Defense Practicum students attend a regularly scheduled weekly seminar meeting.
Practicum Director: Jacquelyn O'Brien, Adjunct Professor
Clinic students work collaboratively with domestic and international nongovernmental organizations, grass-roots organizations, solidarity networks, attorneys, stakeholders, and other institutions engaging in human rights work to advance political, economic, social, and cultural human rights across borders.
SeminarThe Innocence Clinic will introduce students to the very real problems in our criminal justice system which can and do result in wrongful convictions. The Practicum and Seminar will introduce students to the gold-standard of defense work, and the areas in which defense counsel can err at the trial level. In addition, students will learn the various causes of wrongful convictions, (ineffective assistance of defense counsel to include consequences of the indigent defense crisis), misidentification (with an emphasis on cross-racial identification), police/prosecutorial misconduct and official indifference to error and to intention, false confessions, use of informants, and flawed forensics) as well as the investigation, litigation, and advocacy inside and outside of the courtroom necessary to successfully represent the innocent and wrongfully convicted.
Seminar: The classroom component will focus on assigned readings, lectures, and guest speakers directing discussions of legal and policy topics relevant to clinic cases. Students will also become familiar with the federal and Massachusetts habeas corpus statutes and the legal standards governing motions for new trials. Each seminar will include case rounds.
Field work: For the practice component, student teams of three will work collaboratively to review and investigate a client case assigned by NEIP (New England Innocence Project) and/or CPCS (Committee for Public Counsel Servics). In every case, an imprisoned client is claiming innocence and wrongful conviction. The casework will focus on analyzing the evidence of guilt, and with an understanding of the common causes of wrongful convictions, students will determine whether evidence exists that will support each client’s innocence claim and/or a motion for forensic testing or a motion for a new trial. Additionally, the practice component will involve meeting with the client(s) (under the supervision of the clinic supervisor for the first attorney/client meeting) at the designated Department of Correction facility (all steps for clearance by clinic supervisor). Students and the clinic supervisor may schedule these meetings at their convenience, which can include evening hours, as counsel are permitted visits during these times. Students will interview client family members and review legal and investigative files as well as all hearing and trial transcripts. Students also will gather documentation, speak to witnesses and to trial counsel (with the permission and under the direction of supervising counsel for NEIP or CPCS), strategize and implement an investigation, keep detailed records and apply critical legal skills to the case. Students may also assist NEIP or CPCS counsel in litigation if litigation occurs during the semester. Students may be invited to attend hearings in other wrongful conviction cases.
Clinic Director: Tracy Magdalene, Adjunct Professor
Students in the Legal Aid Clinic conduct their fieldwork at Community Legal Aid (CLA), a private, non-profit organization that provides civil legal assistance to poor people and elders. The Legal Aid Clinic allows students to learn about the real practice of law, while giving them the opportunity to engage in community service by providing essential legal services to those in need.
Students who are accepted to the clinic will be assigned to work in one of the following units.Seminar: In addition to the fieldwork, Legal Aid Clinic students attend a two hour weekly seminar meeting.
Orientation: Students are expected to attend a mandatory orientation prior to the start of the semester.
Clinic Director: Gordon Shaw, Adjunct Clinical Professor and Director of Client Access at Community Legal Aid
In the Real Estate Practicum, students experience the world of real estate practice and real estate practitioners and discuss and reflect on those experiences and observations in a weekly seminar, all with the goal of helping each student to prepare for the practice of law. To accomplish this goal and to provide this experience, the practicum has three required segments: an initial training, an externship and a seminar.
1) Initial Training: In preparation for the externships, the first two weeks of the semester involve hands-on training, homework and simulations in title examination and residential real estate closings.
2) Externships: The externship involves placements with real estate professionals and requires a commitment of 10 hours per week (two sessions of 5 hours). Externships are done as a two-person team. One member of the team is initially placed with a real estate attorney specializing in residential real estate, the other with an attorney at a title insurance company. Each team member works for six weeks with one attorney or the other and then switches right before spring break. In both placements, students will work on a variety of title, closing, contract and related problems and will observe the operation of a law office and the interaction with clients, staff and other real estate professionals (brokers, lenders, appraisers, surveyors). Most placements are in Springfield; there is also a paired placement in Connecticut (Windsor Locks and Hartford).
3) Seminar: The seminar component consists of a weekly 2-hour seminar meeting, with required readings and discussions frequently featuring presentations by experts in different aspects of real estate transactions. In some weeks, there will be individual or smaller-group meetings instead of the full-class seminar meetings.
Practicum Director: Melanie S. Lewis, Adjunct Professor
The Small Business Clinic provides legal services to local small businesses and microenterprises. The clients are generally businesses that would not have access to legal services due to limited resources. The businesses are usually owned by one or two individuals and have anywhere from zero to five employees. Students work on transactional legal matters that are typical in the start-up phase of a business. For example, students may assist the owners in determining whether they should operate as a sole proprietor, general partnership, limited liability company or corporation and provide appropriate documentation based on that decision (e.g., operating agreement, partnership agreement, or shareholder agreement). Clients also often have various employment issues including classifying individuals as employees or independent contractors, preparing an employee manual, and/or drafting an employment application. Students perform preliminary trademark availability searches, advise as to copyright protection for client work product, and draft non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements. Students also assist in drafting a variety of contracts for the sale of goods and services. Additionally, students often perform regulatory analysis to determine if there are any licensing and/or permitting requirements for the client’s business.
The goal of the clinic is to expose students to the methodology and mindset of business lawyering. Law students work with the entrepreneurs to identify the legal issues new businesses confront. They also develop important skills, including the ability to pinpoint key issues in an interview with a client. The clinic is part of a national trend to develop transactional educational opportunities to complement the traditional litigation-focused clinics that have long dominated clinical legal education. Students selected usually demonstrate a sincere desire to pursue a career in representing businesses and/or students who have an entrepreneurial spirit. Students interested in more detail on the issues faced by entrepreneurs, and therefore the issues dealt with in the Clinic, could read either of the following law review articles. “Starting from Scratch: A Lawyer’s Guide to Representing a Start-up Company,” 56 Ark. L. Rev. 773 (2004); “Braving the Waters: A Guide for Tennessee’s Aspiring Entrepreneurs,” 8 Transactions: Tenn. J. Bus. L. 243 (Spring 2007).
The course will consist of two full days of orientation (prior to the first day of the semester), weekly seminar classroom meetings, weekly one-on-one meetings with the professor, meetings with clients (sometimes in the evenings) and participation in walk-in legal assistance. Part-time students are welcome to apply for the clinic and have successfully participated in the past. However, part-time students need to be aware that there will be several times when they will need to make themselves available during the day for clinic activities (orientation, initial client interviews (at least three, 3-hour blocks), final client interviews (at least three, 2-hour blocks), weekly one-hour meetings, walk-in legal assistance, additional client meetings, and additional technology training). The professor will work with part-time students who are employed full time to try and schedule some of these sessions in the evening, but there will be several instances where the clinician will need to be available during day-time hours.
In an effort to operate the clinic as close to an actual law firm as possible, students are required to maintain client billing records through use of the clinic’s time/document management software.
Seminar: In addition to the fieldwork, Small Business Clinic students attend a regularly scheduled weekly seminar meeting. Students are expected to attend two full days of a mandatory orientation prior to the start of the semester. The weekly seminar incorporates business and legal practitioners from the local area.
Orientation: Students are expected to attend two and a half days of orientation prior to the start of the semester. No exceptions will be made to this mandatory orientation.
Clinic Director: Robert Statchen, Associate Clinical Professor of Law for Small Business Clinic and Real Estate Practicum
Clinic and Practicum applications are accepted each spring during the open application period for spots in the fall and spring semesters of the following academic year.
Current students may view additional information on the TWEN Clinic, Practicum and Externship Informational Page.
