February, 2014 | Issue II

Newsletter

Clinical and Pro Bono Programs LEARNING THE LAW | SERVING THE WORLD

IN THIS ISSUE:

Environment Law & Policy Clinic Veterans Law and Disability Clinic

Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinic Independent Clinical Program

Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic Clinical Spotlight

Transactional Law Clinics Alumni Stories

VISIT THE OCP BLOG

blogs.law.harvard.edu/clinicalprobono

By Lily Axelrod, J.D.’15

Thirty-three professors from Massachusetts law schools have

signed on to an important legal opinion drafted by

Harvard Law students in support of the Massachusetts Trust

Act. The bill seeks to restore the immigrant community’s trust

in local law enforcement by limiting the role of local police

authorities in the deportation process.

Comprehensive immigration reform has stalled in Congress

while the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

continues to deport large numbers of noncitizens. But states

and cities are stepping up to protect immigrant communities

by resisting federal deportation programs such as Secure

Communities.

One such pro-immigrant initiative is the Massachusetts Trust

Act. If the bill passes, Massachusetts will join California,

Connecticut, and cities like New York, Chicago, Washington

D.C. and New Orleans in exercising discretion about when to

honor immigration detainer requests. DHS issues these

requests to “hold” a noncitizen in jail even after she should be

released, for example, if she is not charged with a crime or has

completed her sentence.

In 2013, the Harvard Immigration Project (HIP), a student practice

organization, joined a coalition of statewide immigrant community

groups and national civil rights organizations devoted to passing the

Massachusetts Trust Act. Students learned that in other jurisdictions,

similar legal opinions were helpful in clarifying legal issues and

gaining support from legislators and law enforcement officials. With

support from HIP Supervising Attorney and Lecturer on Law Phil

Torrey and Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic Director and

Clinical Professor of Law, Professor Deborah Anker, the students

researched complex issues from constitutional law to statutory

interpretation, and drafted the letter which was circulated to local

law professors seeking their support.

“It’s an honor to use our new legal skills to support a community-led

effort to improve the climate for our immigrant neighbors,” said HIP

Policy Committee member Lily Axelrod, J.D.’15.

The legal opinion clarifies that immigration detainers are not

mandatory, and explains the constitutional problems arising out of

enforcement of these detainers. It also emphasizes the growing

nationwide consensus that de-coupling immigration enforcement

from state and local criminal enforcement is both legal and crucial to

ensuring public safety.

The opinion was drafted by the HIP Policy Committee, including

Eva Bitran J.D.’14, Lily Axelrod J.D.’15, Melanie Berdecia J.D.’15,

Antonia Domingo JD’15, Sarah Adkins JD’15, and Julina Guo

J.D.’15.

The Massachusetts Trust Act Coalition will announce the opinion at

a press conference on Wednesday, February 12 at 10:30 am at the

Unitarian Universalist Association, adjacent to the State House.

They will then deliver it to the chairs of the Judiciary Committee and

the Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, and to the

office of the Attorney General.

HIP is a student-led organization committed to providing direct legal

services and policy advocacy. Law student members represent

detained noncitizens in immigration bond hearings, assist with green

card applications for refugees, and advocate for policies which

respect human rights for immigrants.

HARVARD IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE CLINIC

“It’s an honor to use our new legal skills…”

Page 2

ALUMNA REFLECTION

“The clinical approach to legal education is very empowering”

In 2011, O’Rourke appeared in Geneva

and argued before the Committee

Against Torture that the Irish

government had allowed the enslave-

ment and forced labor of thousands of

women. In 2013, the state announced a

€60 million restorative justice plan.

Reflecting on her experience and

motivation, Maeve doubts she would

have pursued the case had she not been

at HLS. “The clinical approach to legal

education is very empowering,

and there was a real sense at Harvard

that we weren’t just learning about the

law for the sake of it. We were there to

develop expertise and a mind of your

own and a sense of what it was you

could and should be doing to change

things,” she said.

While she was an HLS student, Maeve

participated in several clinics and was

awarded a fellowship by the HLS

Human Rights Program. She currently

practices in London, focusing on child

and family law.

The latest Harvrad Bulletin featured Maeve

O’Rourke, LL.M. ’10 and her “Forgotten

Irish” Award.

Page 3

INDEPENDENT CLINICAL PROGRAM

Aloha! By Rob Barnett J.D. ’14

INDEPENDENT CLINICAL PROGRAM

HLS Students Pursue Clinical Projects Around the World

This January, I returned to Honolulu for an Independent

Clinical Project with the Native Hawaiian Legal

Corporation. I’d worked at NHLC last January on a

variety of issues — religious rights of incarcerated

Native Hawaiians, and Native Hawaiian’s rights to

remain living on ancestral family land within Hawaii

State Parks, for example — but this year I focused on

one: land.

Hawaii’s system of property law is unique in the United

States, and therefore quite different from what I’d

learned about in my 1L Property class. Prior to Captain

Cooke’s “discovery” of Hawaii in 1778 and the

subsequent Western development and conquest of the

islands, the Hawaiian people used their land in a

communal way. Today, over 100 years after the

privatization of that system and the forceful overthrow

of the Hawaiian monarchy, several principles of that

system remain. Hawaiian farmers are entitled to pass through other

“private” property to reach their land (or “kuleana,” meaning

responsibility), while the State holds much of the islands in trust for

the benefit of Native Hawaiians.

My work this January focused on understanding, and defending, this

unique system. In one case, I helped argue for the right of a Native

Hawaiian family to access its kuleana land, which has been blocked

from the public roads by surrounding private landowners. In another,

I drafted a complaint to enforce a settlement between the State of

Hawaii and a Native Hawaiian client living on the state’s trust land.

I also attended a court hearing, an informational presentation about

traditional Hawaiian farming practices, opening day ceremonies at

the State Legislature, and a legislative briefing on the State’s trust

responsibility towards Native Hawaiians. I’m currently writing my

J-term paper about those responsibilities.

Of course, my experience of the land in Hawaii was not limited to

my work or studies. In my free time, I biked to Manoa Falls, in the

rainforest on Honolulu’s northern border, and to Makapu’u Point,

where I sat above an old lighthouse and watched humpback whales

play in the channel between Oahu and Moloka’i. One weekend I

traveled to the Big Island of Hawaii, where I climbed Mauna Kea,

the tallest mountain in Hawaii, and hiked through a volcanic crater

that was still emitting steam from below the earth’s crust. On my

penultimate morning in Hawaii, I even woke up at 3am to hike the

so-called “stairway to heaven;” the infamous Ha’iku Stairs. These

experiences helped me to appreciate the unique natural beauty that

Hawaii’s system of property law is designed to protect.

On my last day in Honolulu — I’m working this week remotely from

DC — my office gave me a lei: a necklace of fresh flowers meant to

thank me for my work. Yet it is I, not NHLC, who should be

thankful, for all that I learned and experienced this January. Mahalo

nui loa to the great people at NHLC, and those who supported me at

HLS, for this amazing opportunity. A hui hou!

This winter term, approximately 100 Harvard Law School students

traveled to over 45 cities and countries across the world to pursue

clinical projects that range from examining transitional justice issues for

the ABA Rule of Law Initiative in Mali to developing case studies for the

Arts Law Center in Australia.

Within United States, students traveled to 30 cities to practice with

government offices such as the United States Attorney’s Office, Senate

Judiciary Committee, and organizations such as the Equal Justice Center,

Louisiana Legal Services, United Nations Development Programme and

the American Civil Liberties Union. Through the Independent

Clinical Program and Externship Clinics, students represented clients and

dedicated their skills to meet the legal needs of the community.

Page 4

INDEPENDENT CLINICAL PROGRAM

LL.M. Student Reflects on his Work in Palestine

“My hope is that my

legal skills acquired

during my time at

Harvard Law School

can contribute to the

furtherance of human

rights and

humanitarian advocacy

in the region. “

By Samuel Cogolati, LL.M. ‘14

After having taken Prof. Robert Mnookin’s reading

group on the barriers to resolution in the Israeli-

Palestinian conflict, I was eager to get exposed to

the complex legal and policy issues of this struggle

in the real world. I wanted to take the opportunity

afforded by the Independent Clinical Program to

get involved in the defence of Palestinians’ human

rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

With the help of the Harvard Human Rights

Program, I got involved in a project of the

Human Rights Clinic of Al-Quds University in

Abu Dis. The Clinic asked me to prepare a com-

prehensive report on the forced displacement of

Bedouin communities living in the East Jerusalem

periphery. In order for me to identify legal argu-

ments on both sides of the conflict, and to find

gaps in knowledge about the legal aspects of the

topic, I met in Palestine with very interesting law-

yers at various organizations such as B’Tselem, Al

-Haq, and the United Nations Work and Relief

Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).

The Clinic also arranged two field visits for me in

Bedouin villages near Abu Dis (where I lived), in

the Jordan valley, and in the South Hebron Hills

close to the Negev desert.

I was struck by the similarity of Bedouin

experiences in the West Bank. They were all

refugees from the Negev desert, they all faced

demolition and eviction orders from the Israeli Civil

Administration, and they all lived in subhuman

conditions with no access to water, electricity or

education and health services. I was able to witness

that, in Area C of the West Bank, Israel’s restrictive

planning policies basically deny Bedouin peoples

the right to build tents, erect infrastructures such as

schools, or to graze their livestock. As Israel is

planning to establish a contiguous bloc of

settlements between Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem

as part of the E1 plan and to expand other

settlements in Area C of the West Bank, Bedouin

peoples are again at grave risk of forced eviction

and centralization in planned townships.

My time in Palestine was really formative and

eye-opening. I will keep in touch with the Clinic in

the next months to help them develop new legal

arguments against forced eviction of Bedouin

families around Jerusalem. My hope is that my legal

skills acquired during my time at Harvard Law

School can contribute to the furtherance of human

rights and humanitarian advocacy in the region.

INDEPENDENT CLINICAL PROGRAM

HLS Student Reflects on her Clinical Project in Tel Aviv By Elizabeth Gettinger, J.D. ’15

I arrived in

Tel Aviv in

early January

knowing very

little about

Israeli asylum

law but with

some sense

that the issue was politically divisive.

My fellow HLS students and I spent

our first few days at the Clinic for

Migrants’ Rights at the College of

Law and Business learning the basics

of Israeli asylum law, and I quickly

realized that all I had learned in the

Harvard Immigration and Refugee

Clinic would belittle help in

understanding the very different Israeli

system. Although Israel helped draft

the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention,

the confusing rules governing the

country’s own asylum procedures

seem to be changed at random

and applied arbitrarily, leaving thousands of

asylum seekers in a sort of legal limbo. Many

are held in detention, and only a fraction are

ever officially granted refugee status.

During the weeks we spent working on research

projects for the clinic, immigrants from mostly

African nations including Sudan and Eritrea

organized massive demonstrations in Tel Aviv

to protest for their rights as asylum seekers.

Many businesses throughout the city that

employ asylum seekers organized a celebration

and show of solidarity. But with misinformation

and anti-immigrant rhetoric from the govern-

ment and others, public opinion remains strong-

ly in opposition to asylum seekers. We were

lucky enough to travel around Israel on week-

ends, seeing many of the country’s incredible

sites. I visited the Western Wall during Shabbat,

walked the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the

Holy Sepulchre, and climbed the Temple Mount

to view the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa

Mosque.

These holy places left me with the feeling that

there might be something at stake in Israel and

in its seemingly intractable asylum debate that I

could never fully comprehend, at least not in my

three-week winter term. One the most eye-

opening experiences for me was touring South

Tel Aviv, where most of the asylum seekers live

in cramped conditions. We spoke with a handful

of people who had fled their home countries to

escape persecution and took harrowing journeys

through deserts and hostile territories in search

of temporary security. They all expressed a

desire to return once it was safe at home but

feared for their lives if forced to return

immediately. And I learned there actually is

something at stake here that anyone can

comprehend: a desire to find refuge, live free

from fear, and provide for one’s family.

I returned home hopeful that as asylum

seekers and their advocates organize and

continue to spread this message, real progress

might be possible.

Page 5

INDEPENDENT CLINICAL PROGRAM

HLS Student discusses Pakistan’s Capital Punishment Laws

By: Philippa Greer, LL.M. ’14

I first saw the potential of the

Justice Project as I followed the cases

of ten individuals who were being

held indefinitely at Bagram prison

without access to lawyers and

without having been informed of the

evidence against them. One such

prisoner was seized at the age of 14.

Unlike detainees at Guantanamo-

who may at least engage a legal team

to represent them at a military

hearing- prisoners at Bagram have no

access to lawyers and thus are unable

to challenge the legality of their

detention.

The Justice Project conducts litigation in

Pakistan to challenge unjust laws and to

create progressive legal precedent. Their

broad litigation aims, among other

things, are to improve the rights of the

mentally ill, restrict the application of the

Death Penalty, bring Freedom of

Information to Pakistan, and enforce the

fundamental legal rights of prisoners.

Extensive research and investigation is

essential to their litigation strategy. They

also organize conferences and training on

their areas of expertise for judges and

lawyers to build capacity within the legal

community.

In addition to working on issues related

to secret prisons and providing legal

representation to those who are held

beyond the rule of law in clear violation

of the Geneva Convention, the Justice

Project plays a vital role in providing

direct Pro Bono legal and investigative

services to victims of torture and to those

facing the Death Penalty in

Pakistan.

Some 150 countries worldwide,

including 30 states in the Asia-Pacific

region have abolished the Death Penalty in

law or in practice. Yet, contrary to trends in

contemporary international law that verge

towards abolition of the Death Penalty, in

June 2013 Pakistan’s new government

removed an unofficial moratorium on the

Death Penalty that had been invoked since

2008.

In September of this year, the government

announced that executions would be stayed

temporarily following objections from

outgoing President Asif Ali Zardari and

from international human rights groups,

such as Human Rights Watch.

Thus the current legal climate in Pakistan in

relation to Capital Punishment is

particularly tenuous. Due to the fragile

nature of the current moratorium, an

invaluable opportunity exists to contribute to

the debate over the use of the death

penalty in Pakistan and to ultimately move

things closer towards abolition.

I am fortunate to have received an

international grant from Harvard’s Human

Rights Program to pursue an independent

legal clinic at the Justice Project and I could

not envisage a more valuable way to begin

2014.

INDEPENDENT CLINICAL PROGRAM

HLS Student works in Oman on Counterterrorism and the Rule of Law

By Angela Evans, LL.M. ’14

Harvard Law School student

Angela Evans spent her win-

ter term in an independent

clinical placement with Be-

yond Borders Scotland, an

NGO that advances conflict

prevention and the rule of law

in developing countries and

emerging democracies.

She writes: Beyond Borders’

headquarters may be tucked

away in the beauty of southern

Scotland, but its eye is very

much on the rest of the world.

Headed by internationally ac-

claimed human rights barrister

Mark Muller QC, its consulting

work engages some of the UK’s

leading barristers and experts in

diplomacy, conflict mediation,

and finance to tackle issues at

the cutting edge of international

politics and law.

For several years now, Beyond

Borders has worked in partner-

ship with the UK Foreign &

Commonwealth Office and the

British Council to endorse the

rule of law in the Gulf region.

Oman has made a series of im-

portant reforms to its judicial

arm of government in recent

years, and is seeking to act as a

regional leader in its laws

against terrorism, money

laundering, and corruption. In

light of these developments, the

Omani Attorney General’s de-

partment has sought the insight

of international experts in these

fields.

Over the winter term, I was

lucky enough to travel to Scot-

land to help Mark Muller QC

and Max Hill QC – one of the

UK’s top terrorism prosecutors

– to devise the content of the

advisory sessions on terrorist

prosecutions and global coun-

terterrorism. I then travelled to

Muscat, Oman to help conduct

the sessions held over a five-day

training program for key figures

in the Omani legal, governmen-

tal, and financial sectors.

The clinical placement was a

fantastic opportunity for me to

bridge my interest in human

rights law with my long-held

passion for international affairs.

It was an absolute privilege to

be extended such warm

hospitality in both countries, to

work with such talented legal

minds and to explore the rich

realm of legal work

transcending national lines.

Angela Evans is an LL.M.

student at Harvard Law School,

and a former International

Security Associate at the Lowy

Institute – one of Australia’s

leading foreign affairs think

tanks. She is a Sydney Universi-

ty Medalist in History and Inter-

national Relations and has a law

degree from the University of

Cambridge.

Page 6

INDEPENDENT CLINICAL PROGRAM

A Reflection on the Role of Lawyers in Social Justice Movements

By Sima Atri, J.D. ’15

For me, working as a lawyer in the

United States is complicated by the fact

that many problems result not from a

lack of enforcement of laws, but rather

from unjust laws in the first place.

Legal work can be hard to fathom once

you realize that most lawyers work to

maintain and often enable inequality.

I used to be enamored with the idea of

large-scale national and international

reforms that could “fix” so many of the

local problems I saw. I still believe

strongly that our biggest issues must be

addressed at those high levels – issues

like global warming, unfair trade and

labor practices, and the proliferation of

the arms trade. But this is not the fight I

want to engage with.

Instead, I’ve moved back to working

with the groups that first made me

know I wanted to do this work for the

rest of my life. The homeless shelters,

the youth groups, and the protesters.

It is working with these groups that

developed my passion and now fuels my

commitment.

I realized I needed to work with people and

engage with broader political and social

movements. I’d missed being political. But

I’d also mis-calculated the importance of

community-based organizations.

I’d neglected the importance of personal

relationships and real community leadership

for sustainable change. And I’d forgotten the

energy that can often only be found when

engaging in local campaigns.

And so, six months after a summer in

Burma, and a year and a half after leaving

home in Canada, I now find myself at the

Community Justice Project in Miami. This

organization, and the individuals who work

here, embrace the ideals and political beliefs

undergirding my own understanding of

social change.

They are supporting a taxi driver campaign

for better working and living conditions,

representing community groups in federal

district court fighting for more affordable

housing, and are working to develop creative

approaches to improve conditions in Miami’s

notorious trailer parks.

More than the issues it works on, it was the

organization’s unique, humble, collaborative,

and creative approach to lawyering that

attracted me here.

Their approach, like my own, is grounded in

a deep unease with the way that legal

representation of poor and working

people has been “atomized, depoliticized,

and divorced from any leadership by real

organized constituencies,” and the fact that

traditional individualized legal struggles

have no impact on imbalances of power, and

thus fail to prevent future harms to the

community (see Elsesser, “Community

Lawyering: The Role of Lawyers in the

Social Justice Movement”).

The Community Justice Project’s goal is

therefore to become the go-to legal

resource for grassroots organizing

campaigns involving low-income and

communities of color in Miami. Within this

goal, lawyers here do everything from

litigation, policy advocacy and community

education, to movement-building.

I’m excited to learn more about the role

lawyers can play in supporting real changes

when they choose to be creative and work to

support broader movements. I know this is

only the beginning, and I hope others will

join me in this struggle.

Reach out to me if you’re interested in

learning about cool opportunities for

lawyering or want to share your own

experiences.

ALUMNA REFLECTION

Former Transactional Law Clinics Fellow Therese Rohrbeck launches new business venture

On Wednesday, HLS alumna and former

Transactional Law Clinics Fellow, Therese

Rohrbeck ’08, was featured at Harvard’s Start,

Run, Grow: Exploring Entrepreneurship event,

where she discussed how she started her new

venture, Saga Dairy, which is producing

Viking Icelandic Yogurt. “The idea was born

when my fiancé and I were shopping for yogurt

at a whole foods store and noticed the Icelandic

yogurt, a new product with a high price tag” said

Therese. “We wanted to create something that

was more affordable and we started to

experiment with making our own yogurt at

home.”

Moving from kitchen to mass production,

however, was more complicated; from laboratory

to product design, to packaging, Therese drew on

her skills and knowledge she acquired from her

time with the Transactional Law Clinics. As a

Fellow, she worked on all kinds of legal

transactions with entrepreneurs and small

businesses, learning about the legal obstacles and

strategies for overcoming them.

“I gained the skills that are the building blocks,

necessary to make someone successful” she said.

“From for-profit to not-for-profit, from

restaurants to selling t-shirts, I learned about the

tax issues and the necessary steps to form a

viable company. And if you understand the legal

system, you are less intimidated to build some-

thing from scratch. My time at the Transactional

Law Clinics, not only gave me my legal skills but

taught me entrepreneurship, business, and

negotiation.” L-R: Therese Rohrbeck, Philip Meers

Page 7

TRANSACTIONAL LAW CLINICS

Transactional Law Clinics Help Start-Up Microbrewery Raise Capital

By Christine Marshall, J.D. ’14

Recipe for an exciting start-up: begin with

advanced fermentation technology, create

an innovative craft microbrewery, and

mix-in local urban growers. This is the

strategic plan of one of our clients. In Fall

2013, the Transactional Law Clinics

(“TLC”) helped this start-up company

launch a small private placement offering to

raise capital for its operations. The company

is raising investment capital to start the first

craft brewery of its kind in Somerville,

Massachusetts. In addition to being a

production facility and retail taproom, the

company’s headquarters will also serve as a

local foods hub by hosting a range of small

urban growers in a communal space for

manufacturing and direct retail. Within the

next few years, the company anticipates

launching a unique business incubator to

drive development of interdisciplinary

ventures in fermentation technology. Be-

cause the client expects to be continuing its

private placement offering at the time this

article was scheduled for publication, the

company is not named in this article.

Four local entrepreneurs founded the

business in January 2013. Three of the four

are graduate students at MIT, Harvard, and

Yale, and the fourth is a software engineer.

Collectively, the four founders have a

wealth of expertise in microbiology,

computational biology, and engineering.

They located their operations in Somerville

because they believe that the local craft beer

market is underdeveloped. As they explained,

Somerville is a city of 76,000 people and the

most densely populated township in New

England, but does not have any production

craft breweries. The founders estimate that

the size of the Somerville beer market is

about $50 million annually, assuming a price

of $20 to $40 per gallon and beer

consumption at the 2012 Massachusetts

average of 26.2 gallons per legally-aged

person.

TLC Student Karl Sigwarth ’14 began work-

ing with the company in Spring 2013 to draft

an operating agreement. The agreement was

finalized in September 2013, but the

Founders’ plans were unexpectedly delayed

due to the federal government shutdown on

October 1, 2013. The company was unable to

file its application for a federal brewing

permit with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and

Trade Bureau as planned, causing a setback of

about a month. With production delayed, the

company reached out to TLC for help raising

capital to bridge the gap. Christine Marshall,

TLC Student ’14, worked on the case, and

was supervised by Joe Hedal, Deputy

Director of TLC.

TLC recognized that there were limited

choices available for fundraising since the

company did not want to amend its operating

agreement until after the permitting process

was complete and, as a start-up, could not

access traditional bank loans at desired

rates. With TLC’s guidance, the company is

conducting a convertible note offering. This

structure enables the company to raise funds

from investors immediately and repay them

with equity when the notes convert. Christine

helped the company draft a convertible note

and private placement memorandum, use an

exemption from federal securities laws, and

comply with applicable state securities laws.

Christine commented: “While Rule 504 of

Regulation D under the federal securities laws

applies as expected, I was surprised by the

variation in state securities laws. In terms of

the convertible note purchase agreement, I

tried to keep the document as simple as

possible since the company intends on

offering the securities to friends and family

investors.

I found it interesting and challenging to

look at complex precedents from other

deals and decide what concepts should

be included in the note agreement to

appropriately balance precision and

completeness with simplicity. Overall,

I think that both the PPM and converti-

ble note purchase agreement will serve

the client’s interests well and enable

them to conduct a successful offering.”

The case was a wonderful opportunity

for TLC students to learn how to

conduct a small private placement

offering and navigate securities laws,

while providing valuable services to

local entrepreneurs. Professor Brian

Price, Director of TLC, stated: “This

case represents the kind of experience

students are able to gain assisting

clients to figure out and implement

solutions in fast moving real time

contexts handling challenging multi-

doctrinal legal matters. Not only did

Christine benefit from the learning

experience but so too did her clinical

student colleagues.”

The company is well on its way to

achieving its capital target to fund its

near-term operations and looks forward

to a grand opening in Spring of

2014. As one of the founders observed,

“We never imagined that the

government shut-down this past fall

would delay our federal permitting and

put our plans on hold. The work and

guidance provided by TLC and

Christine was a great help to us as we

navigated through this obstacle.” TLC

is pleased to have the opportunity to

serve the local community and provide

students with a variety of meaningful

assignments that provide practical legal

training while in law school.

TIPS If there's something you’d like to share with the HLS clinical community, please send a tip

to clinical@law.harvard.edu.

Page 8

Clinical Spotlight: Sabi Ardalan I’ve been working at the Harvard

Immigration and Refugee Clinic

since August, 2008. I did the clinic

as a student back in 2000 – I think –

and did research for Debbie while I

was in law school too. My parents

are from Iran and I grew up talking

about human rights and refugee is-

sues, which is why I care about this

work. In the clinic, we supervise

students and represent people who

are seeking asylum and other forms

of immigration relief in the U.S.

What I love best about this job is

working with our clients and the

students. Our clients are amazing

and inspiring people who have survived so much and teach me so much

every day. My first client as a clinic student, over a decade ago, is now a

translator for the clinic – I feel so lucky to know him. And without the

amazing students who do the Clinic, we couldn’t do this work – they are

really energizing and incredibly talented advocates, who I learn a

tremendous amount from every semester.

In terms of notable projects, I’m really excited that we now have a social

worker on staff since I’m very interested in interdisciplinary work and

the intersection between immigration and refugee law and psychology

and social work. For the first time this fall, I taught a reading group on

trauma, refugees, and the law, and Liala, our social worker, helped with

it – it’s been great to work in collaboration with her, both on client cases

and in educating and training students on issues of PTSD and secondary

trauma. - When I’m not working, I like to travel, read, watch movies,

and play with my new kitty. -

A Warm Welcome to Aladdine Joroff

The Office of Clinical and Pro Bono

Programs would like to welcome

Aladdine Joroff, a new Clinical

Instructor and Staff Attorney in the

Emmett Environmental Law and

Policy Clinic. Prior to joining

Harvard Law School, Aladdine

practiced environmental and land use

law in the Boston offices of

Beveridge & Diamond and Goodwin

Procter, where her work included

permitting, operating and regulatory

compliance counseling, policy

development advocacy and associated

litigation in state and federal

courts. She has worked with clients in the private, public and nonprofit

arenas with a focus on energy sector participants. Aladdine received her

J.D., cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law and

her M.S. and B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

HLS NEWS: Shadowing the Supreme Court: Law School clinic gives students intense grounding in real-time cases” “For the past several years, Harvard Law

School students have spent their break time in

Washington, D.C., parsing reams of heady data

and crafting nuanced legal arguments to cases

headed for the U.S. Supreme Court. “The idea

of the clinic is to get students exposure to

working on actual Supreme Court cases at

various stages,” said Kevin Russell, a lecturer

on law at HLS and a partner in Goldstein &

Russell, P.C., a small Washington firm that

focuses on practicing before the Supreme Court.”

CYBERLAW CLINIC: Massachusetts High Court Requires Warrant for Cell Phone Tracking The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled

that police officers need to obtain a warrant before

they obtain information about your location from a

cell phone service provider. The Cyberlaw Clinic

filed a friend-of-the-court brief in this case on behalf

of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, arguing

against warrantless collection of location records.

HARVARD MEDIATION & NEGOTIATION CLINIC: Bob Bordone part of “Distinguished Speakers” series at U.S. Embassy HNMCP Director Bob Bordone gave a lecture titled

“Getting Beyond Gridlock: What Politicians Can

Learn From Negotiation Experts” in January of 2014

as part of the Distinguished Speaker Series at the

U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel.

ENVIRONMENTAL LAW & POLICY CLINIC: Report Identifies Environmental Performance Indicators for Companies Proposing to Drill in the U.S. Arctic In December 2013, the Emmett Environmental Law

& Policy Clinic released a new report, Suggested

Indicators of Environmentally Responsible

Performance of Offshore Oil and Gas Companies

Proposing to Drill in the U.S. Arctic.

HARVARD BULLETIN: Going National: Clinic places students in AGs’ offices across the country” Harvard Law School’s Attorneys General Clinic,

taught by former Maine AG, James E. Tierney, has

been one of the most popular in the clinical program

since it was instituted in 2011, with placements in the

office of Massachusetts AG Martha Coakley.

HLS NEWS: Court decision in appeal argued by HLS clinical students will benefit thousands of disabled vets In a decision that impacts thousands of veterans, the

U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims has ruled

that Lieutenant Colonel Wilson J. Ausmer, Jr., a

highly decorated veteran, should be able to file an

appeal of his disability claim even though he had

missed the 120-day deadline to do so.

IN OTHER NEWS