Clinics
Students in clinics work with real clients on real cases, under the supervision of our expert faculty.
Lawyers, judges, and legal educators overwhelmingly endorse the value of clinical education.聽
We have some of the most experienced clinical teachers, supervisors, and scholars in the nation. Students learn how law works in practice, and how a lawyer's approach influences the value, direction, and quality of the legal process.
In 香蕉秀 Law's clinics, students work in civil litigation, criminal justice, juvenile rights, immigration law, issues affecting women, the wrongly convicted, government practice, community development, the prevention of homelessness, the role of the judiciary, and more.
Clinical work performed by students provides an immeasurable benefit to the clients and agencies they serve.
The 香蕉秀 Legal Services LAB is a fully-functioning law firm within 香蕉秀 Law that provides community legal services. If you're interested in receiving legal services from one of LAB's clinics, please visit their聽.
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Amicus Brief Clinic
<h3>Director</h3>
<p><a href="mailto:thomas.carey@bc.edu"><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle">Tom Carey</span></a></p>
<h3>Overview</h3>
<p>The <i>Amicus Curiae</i> brief provides a formal avenue for interested non-parties to offer new information and unique insights to a court. The amicus brief procedure allows the court to take advantage of expertise with respect to a matter or policy that is before the court and to consider implications of the court's ruling beyond those raised by the parties to the litigation. Amicus briefs are accepted under certain conditions by a wide variety of courts, including the US Supreme Court, federal and state appellate courts, as well as international tribunals such as the European Court of Human Rights, the International Criminal Court, the Court of Justice of the European Union, among many others. </p>
<p>The Amicus Brief Clinic provides students and faculty an opportunity to weigh in on, and attempt to influence, the development of the law and public policy in the courts. A student team researches, writes, edits, and submits an amicus brief to the court for consideration. </p>
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Civil Litigation Clinic: Housing Justice
<h3>Director</h3>
<p><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle"><a href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/faculty-directory/alan-minuskin.html">Alan Minuskin</a></span></p>
<h3>Overview</h3>
<p>Students plan and conduct every phase of civil litigation, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Initial client interviews</li>
<li>Legal strategy</li>
<li>Counseling clients</li>
<li>Pretrial discovery and motion hearings</li>
<li>Settlement negotiations</li>
<li>Pleadings</li>
<li>Courtroom advocacy, including trials and administrative hearings</li>
<li>Drafting and arguing appeals</li>
</ul>
<p>Clinical faculty guide students, attending hearings and trials and giving feedback at every stage.</p>
<p>Students in the Civil Litigation: Housing Justice Clinic represent local low-income residents in cases involving family law, landlord-tenant disputes, public benefits, eviction, foreclosure, and access to government-funded housing.</p>
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Civil Rights Clinic
<h3>Director</h3>
<p><a href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/faculty-directory/reena-parikh.html"><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle">Reena Parikh</span></a></p>
<h3>Overview</h3>
<p>As they engage in different modes of lawyering, students in this clinic are encouraged to think critically about the role of the lawyer, client, and community in advancing racial justice movements. Each student in the clinic will be assigned at least one litigation matter and one community or policy advocacy matter. On the litigation side, representative matters may include civil rights cases on behalf of low-wage workers, immigrants, prisoners and communities of color. On the community advocacy side, representative matters may include supporting grassroots organizations with their organizing campaigns, legislative advocacy or other research and outreach projects.</p>
<p>In the Civil Rights Clinic, teams of students address civil rights issues affecting low-wage workers, immigrants, prisoners, and communities of color in Massachusetts through the lens of movement lawyering by engaging in individual client representation as well as community and policy advocacy projects.</p>
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Community Enterprise Clinic
<h3>Director</h3>
<p><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle"><a href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/faculty-directory/paul-tremblay.html">Paul Tremblay</a></span></p>
<p><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle"><a href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/inactive-faculty/jordan-engelhart.html">Jordan Engelhart</a></span></p>
<p>Counseling a high-tech incubator for minority entrepreneurs, representing a restaurant workers鈥� advocacy organization, helping a small business navigate import law鈥攖hese are just some of the opportunities available through our Community Enterprise Clinic (CEC).</p>
<p>The CEC puts students at the center of transactional legal matters as they assist emerging businesses, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits with intellectual property issues, commercial leases, and 501(c)(3) exemptions.</p>
<p>香蕉秀 Law is one of the only schools in the nation to have a formal collaboration with an established major law firm鈥擭utter McClennen & Fish LLP鈥攁nd CEC Director Paul Tremblay wrote the textbook for transactional clinics: <i>Introduction to Transactional Lawyering Practice</i>.</p>
<p>Transactional legal matters such as intellectual property issues, commercial leases, and organizational tax exemptions will be addressed by students in the Community Enterprise Clinic representing small businesses, entrepreneurs, and nonprofit organizations in the Greater Boston area.</p>
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Defenders Clinic
<h3>Directors</h3>
<p><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle"><a href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/faculty-directory/Lumina-Sato.html">Lumina Sato (Defenders)</a></span></p>
<h3>Overview</h3>
<p>Almost 2 million people are currently incarcerated in the US. Students explore the problem of mass incarceration and the role of race and poverty in the criminal legal system through the representation of indigent clients charged with crimes and probation violations. <br>
</p>
<p>The Criminal Justice Clinic's integration of prosecution and defense perspectives is a unique feature of the clinical experience at 香蕉秀 Law and grants students access to a range of perspectives and experiences in criminal case preparation and presentation. The Defenders Clinic is designed to encourage students' reflective discernment.</p>
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Entrepreneurship & Innovation Clinic
<h3>Director</h3>
<p><a href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/faculty-directory/sandy-tarrant.html"><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle">Sandy Tarrant</span></a></p>
<h3>Overview</h3>
<p>Students in the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Clinic navigate the rapidly evolving field of entrepreneurship law, which includes intellectual property, licensing, regulation, and corporate formation. Working under the supervision of the Clinic director, students will learn to work with organizational clients and learn to represent clients in transactions.</p>
<p>Students may have the opportunity to advise clients on a variety of legal issues, related to new and emerging businesses including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Entity choice and corporate formation</li>
<li>Employment law</li>
<li>Trademark and copyright registration and protection</li>
<li>Strategizing, negotiating, drafting and reviewing agreements</li>
<li>Ongoing corporate matters</li>
</ul>
<p>Students help bring innovative ideas to life, advising social entrepreneurs, tech startups, authors, filmmakers, musicians, and other creative thinkers. Students deal in the worlds of intellectual property, licensing, regulation, and corporate formation in our region鈥檚 thriving innovation economy.</p>
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Immigration Clinic
<h3>Director</h3>
<p><a href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/faculty-directory/mary-holper.html"><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle">Mary Holper</span></a></p>
<h3>Overview</h3>
<p>Students gain vital practice skills in interviewing, drafting affidavits, preparing clients for interviews, researching and writing as they do this critical鈥攁nd sometimes life-saving鈥攚ork.<br>
</p>
<p>The types of cases students assist with include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Asylum and other relief based on fear of persecution</li>
<li>Deportation waivers for long-term U.S. residents</li>
<li>Adjustment of status for noncitizens with family members who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents</li>
<li>Visas and relief for victims of violent crimes</li>
<li>Seeking release from detention in bond hearings and petitions for habeas corpus in federal courts<br>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Students defend noncitizens against deportation, advocate for their release from immigration detention, and give "know your rights" presentations to immigration detainees. Clients are often asylum seekers, long-term residents, victims of crime, juveniles, and other marginalized populations.<br>
</p>
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Innocence Program
<h3>Directors</h3>
<p><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle"><a href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/faculty-directory/sharon-beckman.html">Sharon Beckman</a></span></p>
<p><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle"><a href="mailto:charlotte.whitmore@bc.edu">Charlotte Whitmore</a></span></p>
<h3>Overview</h3>
<p>Clinic focuses on cases involving complex factual investigation as well as work with scientific and forensic experts. We co-counsel with the Committee for Public Counsel Services Innocence program and with other attorneys and we also accept cases even where no other counsel is appointed and even if no DNA evidence is available to prove factual innocence.</p>
<p>As part of the Innocence Program, students:</p>
<ul>
<li>Evaluate cases of individuals who maintain they did not commit the crimes for which they were convicted and punished</li>
<li>Represent individuals seeking relief from wrongful conviction or access to scientific testing of physical evidence to prove their innocence</li>
<li>Plan and conduct factual investigations, including witness interviews</li>
<li>Work with scientific experts, forensic witnesses, and crime labs</li>
<li>Draft motions, supporting affidavits, and memoranda in support of motions for forensic testing and post-conviction relief</li>
<li>Prepare for and participate in judicial proceedings</li>
<li>Write amicus briefs on issues relating to wrongful convictions</li>
<li>Engage with faculty and graduate students from Psychology and Social Work on breaking edge on multidisciplinary research to inform public policy</li>
</ul>
<p>Students study the problem of erroneous convictions and work to remedy and prevent these injustices. Clinic students and faculty represent individuals wrongly convicted in Massachusetts for crimes they did not commit and collaborate with public, private, and nonprofit partners in litigation and public policy reforms.</p>
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International Human Rights Practicum
<h3>Director</h3>
<p><a href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/faculty-directory/daniela-urosa.html"><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle">Daniela Urosa</span></a></p>
<h3>Overview</h3>
<p>The International Human Rights Practicum focuses on appellate submissions to regional and international courts and other legal organizations that address international human rights issues. For example, students have worked on submissions to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The Inter-American System for the protection of human rights (IASHR) is the regional system responsible for monitoring, promoting, and protecting human rights in the countries that are members of the Organization of American States (OAS). Currently, it is one of the strongest regional human rights protection systems in the world.</p>
<p>International Human Rights Practicum students advocate for the promotion of international protection of human rights to regional and international courts and other legal organizations that address international human rights issues.</p>
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Lifer Parole & Medical Release Clinic
<h3>Director</h3>
<p><a adhocenable="false" href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/faculty-directory/frank-herrmann.html"><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle">Frank Herrmann, S.J.</span></a></p>
<h3>Overview</h3>
<p>Students will assess the client鈥檚 criminal history, institutional record, physical and mental health, and risk of re-offending. Then they will advocate with the Massachusetts Department of Correction for release and, if not successful, possibly in the Superior Court on appeal.</p>
<p>In the Lifer Parole & Medical Release Clinic, law students in collaboration with a social worker or social work student will help prepare a petition for compassionate release and a medical parole plan for state prisoners suffering from terminal illnesses or irreversible physical or cognitive incapacitation.</p>
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MA AG Civil Litigation Program
<h3>Director</h3>
<p><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle"><a href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/faculty-directory/thomas-barnico.html">Tom Barnico</a></span></p>
<p><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle"><a href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/faculty-directory/james-sweeney.html">Jim Sweeney</a></span></p>
<h3>Overview</h3>
<p>Students work directly with Bureau attorneys in the representation of state agencies and officials in state and federal courts. Students assigned to the Constitutional and Administrative Law Division will work on a variety of court cases involving administrative and constitutional law, federal courts, and statutory construction. Students assigned to the Trial Division will work on a variety of cases involving employment, tort, civil rights, contracts, and eminent domain and land use law.<br>
</p>
<p>Students work directly with Bureau attorneys in the representation of state agencies and officials in state and federal courts.<br>
</p>
Project Entrepreneur
<h3>Director</h3>
<p><a adhocenable="false" href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/faculty-directory/lawrence-gennari.html"><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle">Larry Gennari</span></a></p>
<p>The mission of Project Entrepreneur is to equip the entrepreneurs with the tools necessary to be successful through networking and mentorship and the completion of an important student-facilitated 鈥渆ntrepreneurial fundamentals鈥� class focused on legal aspects of operations, sales and marketing, and strategy.</p>
<p>Project Entrepreneur is centered on using entrepreneurship to foster the successful reentry of individuals with criminal records, primarily those formerly incarcerated, back into society, offering a new beginning for them, their families, and invoking positive change in their communities.<br />
</p>
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Prosecution Clinic
<h3>Directors</h3>
<p><b data-rte-class="rte-temp"> </b></p>
<p><span class="list-gold-black icon-arrow-circle"><a href="/content/bc-web/schools/law/academics-faculty/faculty-directory/evangeline-sarda.html">Evangeline Sarda (Prosecution)</a></span></p>
<h3>Overview</h3>
<p>Our Criminal Justice Clinic comprises the Defenders Program, the Prosecution Program, and the Criminal Justice Clinic Class.</p>
<p>Students are placed in the Middlesex District Attorney鈥檚 Office and have an opportunity to handle all aspects of misdemeanor and minor felony cases in a local district court.<br>
</p>
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“The 香蕉秀 Law Defenders Clinic really expanded my understanding of the law and gave me the confidence that I could take on new and different legal challenges.”