THE GITTIS CENTER FOR

CLINICAL LEGAL STUDIES

EXTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

For students interested in experience-based study in non-profit and governmental practice settings that cannot be replicated on campus, Penn Law offers an exciting array of externships in Philadelphia, New York, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Externships are supervised in tandem by carefully selected site supervisors and faculty through bi-weekly, in-house tutorials. In past semesters, Penn Law students have completed semester long externships at many diverse government and non-profit settings, including the following:

Community Legal Services of Philadelphia

Death Penalty Litigation at the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Defenders

Federal Appellate Litigation before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals (in partnership with the Dechert law firm)

National Labor Relations Board

New York Attorney General’s Office

New York City Law Department

Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office

PA Human Relations Commission

Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office

Philadelphia Law Department

The Pennsylvania Innocence Project

University of Pennsylvania – General Counsel’s Office

U.S. Attorney’s Office

U.S. Department of Commerce

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Treasury

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission

U.S. State Department

The White House

Women’s Law Project

GITTIS CENTER FOR CLINICAL LEGAL STUDIES

Louis S. RulliDirector and Practice Professor of Law

Tel: 215.898.8427 Fax: 215.573.6783

Rachel MayoverAdministrative Director

Tel: 215.898.8904 Fax: 215.573.6783

Email: clinic@law.upenn.edu www.law.upenn.edu/clinic

LAWYERING IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST SEMINAR

Exploring the Unique Challenges of Public Service

Founded: 1996

This interactive and unique course is specifically directed toward students considering careers in public interest, including Toll Public Interest Scholars and students who intend to be pro bono leaders of the private bar.

The course builds upon the diverse practice experiences that students obtain while in law school by examining common lawyering themes that confront all public interest lawyers and transcending any individual substantive area of practice. Students are placed in the roles of advocates, managers, directors, and trustees of non-profit, legal advocacy organizations where they are called upon to formulate and critique policies that address a broad range of systemic issues, such as scarcity of resources, competitive service-delivery models, and third-party intrusions into the attorney-client relationship. Through contemporary readings, court observations, guest speakers, film, and simulated exercises based upon actual problems experienced by public interest organizations, students gain a deeper understanding of the challenges inherent in public interest practice, and obtain valuable insights into organizational governance and management issues involved in promoting access to justice for poor and oppressed communities.

TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL CLINIC

LAW IN PRACTICE

The Gittis Center bridges the knowledge learned in traditional classroom study with real-world practical experience on behalf of actual clients.

Through our Center, students build relationships with diverse clients, develop essential lawyering skills, enhance their professional development, and apply their talents and creativity in a law firm setting housed conveniently in a state-of-the-art office located in the Law School. Under close supervision of the Center’s experienced faculty, students hone their skills in a firm environment while serving the community, the nation, and the world.

Our clinics are specially designed to help students develop core lawyering competencies and foster professional identities. They offer challenging experiential learning opportunities in litigation, business transactions, child advocacy, mediation, legislation, interdisciplinary practice, international lawyering, appellate lawyering, and IP and technology law. Students deepen their substantive legal knowledge while sharpening problem-solving skills to resolve real world problems with the complexities and challenges that only real client interaction can provide.

Penn Law’s clinical program has a long and distinguished history. With a focus on individualized supervision and faculty mentoring, the clinics are a unique and rewarding part of a Penn Law education, affording students an opportunity to develop fundamental professional competencies and shape a distinct set of professional values. In 2013, readers of the National Law Journal selected Penn’s clinical program as the best in the nation.

MEDIATION CLINICThe Mediation Clinic teaches conflict resolution and creative problem-solving.

After studying negotiation and mediation theory and observing mediators in practice, students are trained in a wide range of mediation skills. Under faculty supervision, students then serve as front-line mediators for civil litigation in Pennsylvania trial courts, employment discrimination claims, child custody (domestic and international), neighborhood violence, and campus discipline cases. Seminar topics range from restorative justice to judicial settlements to online dispute resolution.

THE

GIT

TIS

CLIN

IC F

OR

CLIN

ICA

L LE

GA

L ST

UD

IES

CRIMINAL DEFENSE CLINIC

CIVIL PRACTICE CLINICThe Lawyer-Advocate in Litigation

Founded: 1975, Penn’s first in-house clinic

Lawyering for the Accused

Founded: Mid-1960s, in partnership with the Defender Association of Philadelphia

DETKIN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & TECHNOLOGY LEGAL CLINICProfessional Experience in the Real World

Founded: 2012, works in collaboration with Penn’s Schools of Engineering, Medicine, Business, Arts & Sciences, and Center for Technology Transfer

ENTREPRENEURSHIP LEGAL CLINICThe Entrepreneurship Legal Clinic is one of the oldest transactional clinics in the nation.

Students gain experience in lawyering for entrepreneurs — both for-profit and non-profit — while fostering economic growth in underserved communities by providing legal counsel, community education, and technical assistance.

Students experience first-hand the essential role performed by transactional business law practitioners and develop and refine their own business and legal skills through work in a broad range of areas that include start-up counseling and enterprise structuring, entity formation, contract negotiating and drafting, and the protection of intellectual property. Students also learn to navigate the maze of licensing and regulatory requirements, give advice on best business practices and strategy, and conduct free community education workshops for entrepreneurs.

INTERDISCIPLINARY CHILD ADVOCACY CLINIC The Interdisciplinary Child Advocacy Clinic brings together law, social work, medicine, and mental health to advocate across disciplines for the most vulnerable adolescents while teaching students fundamental lawyering skills. Although their legal issues vary, all of the Clinic’s adolescent clients share a history of trauma, poverty, and crisis that can only be effectively addressed through an interdisciplinary practice. The Clinic’s unique model of working with medical, mental health, and social work experts across Penn provides an unparalleled opportunity for clients to receive the highest level of legal services and for students to engage in interdisciplinary practice within the context of child advocacy. Students advocate for their clients across a range of venues, including state courts, administrative agencies, schools, and social service organizations. In addition to their direct client representation, law students also receive training from and provide legal consultation to medical, mental health, and social work experts from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the Penn Youth and Family Trauma Clinic. Through the partnership with CHOP, the students serve as legal consultants on pending legislation and policy reform initiatives.

LEGISLATIVE CLINICThe Legislative Clinic is one of only a handful of law school clinical programs in the nation devoted exclusively to legislative lawyering and the formation of public policy.

The clinic combines federal legislative fieldwork in Congress with classroom study of legislative process, statutory drafting, legislative advocacy, and lobbying disclosure, and reform. Lawyers are increasingly called upon to pursue legislative and regulatory solutions for their clients. In the clinic, students learn about legislative solutions while engaged in actual legislative and public policy work on issues of state and national importance.

SUPREME COURT CLINICThe Supreme Court Clinic is the nation’s first to closely integrate practical experience on Supreme Court matters with a semester-long academic seminar on the workings of the Court.

Clinic students work on real Supreme Court cases, including conducting research, writing briefs, and participating in moot court rehearsals that are held prior to oral arguments at One First Street. The students work in partnership with the Washington, D.C., law offices of Paul Hastings. In the seminar, students study the Supreme Court primarily from the point of view of the advocacy before the Court and the ways in which advocates’ strategies may (or may not) influence the Court at each stage of a case — the petition for certiorari and brief in opposition; merits briefs by petitioner and respondent; and oral argument. The seminar includes consideration of one or more cases currently before the Court, with trips to the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments. In a recent term, for example, students worked on three cases involving federal sentencing guidelines, international custody law, and sovereign immunity under the Federal Tort Claims Act, prevailing in all three decisions.

The Transnational Legal Clinic provides students an opportunity to explore the role of the lawyer in settings that cut across cultures, borders, languages, and legal systems.

Students engage in direct legal representation of individual and organizational clients on immigration and other cases before a variety of international and domestic venues. Students also have the opportunity to engage in broader advocacy efforts around human rights. The fieldwork is designed to expose students to a full range of advocacy tools, such as litigation, legislative and other policy initiatives, investigation and report writing, community organizing, and transactional work. Students work in teams of two or more under faculty supervision, engage in all aspects of client representation, and are expected to engage in critical reflection on choices made in the course of their lawyering on behalf of their clients.

“In the Civil Practice Clinic, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a range of matters including child custody, worker’s compensation, civil forfeiture, and landlord-tenant representation. I’ve learned how to craft and file various petitions and letters and to juggle a small case load. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from my peers and supervisors. The training and skills I have obtained through the clinics are invaluable!”

Kendal Rinko L’16Summer Intern, Southern Center for Human Rights (Atlanta, GA)

In our primary litigation clinic, students are certified by state and federal courts to provide legal representation to indigent clients in civil matters.

Students interview and counsel clients, develop case strategies, draft pleadings, engage in discovery, negotiate with opposing parties, and provide representation in court hearings and administrative proceedings. In this intensive civil litigation course, students participate in weekly “case rounds” discussions about their cases and learn essential lawyering skills while promoting access to justice for poor and disadvantaged clients.

In case after case, students have won impressive court victories and negotiated highly favorable settlements on behalf of victims of race, age, and disability discrimination in the workplace, on behalf of prisoners injured by institutional misconduct, and on behalf of homeowners defending against governmental action seeking the civil forfeiture of their homes.

The Criminal Defense Clinic, conducted in partnership with the Defender Association of Philadelphia, combines hands on trial experience with an educational component tailored to developing essential criminal defense skills.

Students observe arraignments, preliminary hearings, and trials, and engage in mock classroom exercises to prepare them for actual court appearances. Students then serve as defense counsel in actual misdemeanor and felony cases in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and the Philadelphia Municipal Court under close supervision of a senior trial attorney employed by the Defender Association.

In all of this intensive work, students have access to the mental health, investigatory, and other specialized resources of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, one of the nation’s premier providers of criminal defense services for the indigent. Through their work in this clinic, students develop courtroom competency skills while studying experientially the criminal justice system and the role of the lawyer in defending individuals accused of a crime.

Penn Law’s newest clinic sets a new standard for higher legal education in IP and technology by providing hands-on practical experience in the commercialization of creativity and innovation.

Students who enroll in the Detkin IP and Technology Legal Clinic (IPC) become IP counselors to a variety of clients, which in any semester may include scientists, entrepreneurs, artists, and large and small entities, including Penn’s Center for Innovation. By helping all size and manner of clients with their transactional IP issues, students learn to straddle the fields of law, business, technology, and the arts. The Clinic has created strong collaborations with other Penn professional schools (including the Schools of Engineering, Medicine, Business [Wharton], and Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences), to allow law students to learn with an interdisciplinary perspective how to best serve clients.

The Clinic is the newest of Penn’s offerings in an already robust IP curriculum. The Clinic builds upon the strengths of Penn Law’s IP research entity, the Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition, works closely with the student-run Penn Intellectual Property Group (PIPG), and recently sponsored the championship team (Best Overall and Best Draft) in the IP LawMeet, a national transactional moot court competition.

The Lawyer as Business Strategist

Founded: 1981 with Wharton

The Lawyer as Neutral Party

Founded: 1986

The Lawyer Working across Professions

Founded: 1983; works in collaboration with Penn’s Schools of Medicine and of Social Policy and Practice, and with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Advocating at the Highest Level

Founded: 2009

The Lawyer as Policymaker

Founded: 1997

Making an Impact Worldwide

Founded: 2006