Clinics
In Cleveland-Marshall’s Clinics students get to put what they learn in the classroom to work in the service of actual clients with real world legal problems. Under the close supervision of experienced attorneys, students serve the community and learn lawyering skills by practicing law. Our five clinics specialize in particular areas of the law: Employment Law, Environmental Law, Fair Housing Law, Law and Public Policy, and Urban Development Law. Some are litigation oriented which means they serve clients with legal problems that could potentially result in a lawsuit or an administrative hearing, others provide advice to clients by researching the law and counseling them, still others combine counseling, transactional work and litigation. Students in every clinic learn practical lawyering skills and tactics, professionalism and ethics.
The Employment Law Clinic
The Employment Law Clinic provides students with the opportunity to represent individual clients in federal and state courts and agencies in matters such as unemployment compensation, wrongful termination, discrimination and other statutory claims. Students participate in all aspects of representation from client interviewing through final resolution of the case, be that settlement, trial, or appeal. They interview clients and determine, in consultation with Clinic attorneys, how to best serve the individual. That may be simply providing legal advice, or it may include representing the client in mediation and/or investigatory proceedings before the Ohio Civil Rights Commission or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or in hearings before the Ohio Unemployment Compensation Review Commission or the federal Merit Systems Protection Board or in lawsuits in state or federal court.
Students may also represent non-profit organizations on employment issues, e.g., living wage legislation. Such representation involves research into legal and policy considerations, strategy planning with clients, drafting legislation and negotiation.
Students also participate in weekly seminar meetings that focus on pending Clinic cases and specific litigation skills such as interviewing and counseling, drafting pleadings and motion practice. Simulations are utilized to provide experience in certain of these skills.
Clinical Professor Kenneth Kowalski, Director, Clinical Professor Gordon Beggs
The Environmental Law Clinic
In the Environmental Law Clinic students do practical environmental legal work for local environmental non-profit groups. Clients include organizations like Earth Day Coalition, Chagrin River Watershed Partners, the Countryside Program, and the Ohio Trust for Public Land. Students work in teams to research and investigate problems assigned by clients; this includes meeting regularly with clients, conducting factual investigation and interviewing state and local government officials. Students may draft legislation or local ordinances and prepare reports regarding regional, national, and international environmental issues.
Students met weekly with the supervising professor to discuss current projects and the legal, planning and counseling skills necessary to meet client needs.
Professor of Law Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, Director
The Fair Housing Law Clinic
The Fair Housing Law Clinic gives students the chance to represent victims of housing discrimination in both state and federal court as well as before administrative agencies. This Clinic is a joint project between the College of Law and The Housing Advocates, Inc., a non-profit advocacy organization. Students work in a practicing public interest law firm setting under the supervision of The Housing Advocates Inc. attorneys. Students interview and counsel clients, negotiate, draft legal documents, prepare for hearings at the Ohio Civil Rights Commissions and trials and appeals at state and federal courts.
In weekly seminars with the supervising attorneys and one of the law school professors students review pending matters, evaluate cases, discuss negotiation tactics, and engage in simulations of required litigation skills including negotiation, drafting discovery, oral argument, substantive and procedural legal issues, and related issues of professionalism.
Professor Stephen Lazarus, Supervisor along with Ed Kramer and David Oakley, Attorneys at The Housing Advocates, Inc. and Marilyn Tobocman, Ohio Assistant Attorney General, staff the Fair Housing Law Clinic.
Law and Public Policy Clinic
The Law and Public Policy Clinic provides students the opportunity to work for local governments and community organizations on problems involving law and public policy planning. The Clinic’s clients -- state and local governments, citizens' groups, and not for profit agencies -- seek analysis of, and proposed solutions for, a variety of critical governmental and social issues. Clinic projects have included a study of "ethics in government" legislation in other states and recommendations for changes in Ohio law for the Ohio Ethics Commission; a study of policy alternatives for abatement of lead paint in residential housing for the Cleveland Health Department; and analyses of affirmative action government contracting programs for both Cuyahoga County and Lorain County.
Clinic students typically engage in the following activities:
- legal and historical research;
- consultation with clients and their constituencies;
- drafting of legal memoranda and correspondence;
- analysis of legal and policy issues;
- presentations to clients in forums that address client issues.
Training and supervision in the Law and Public Policy Clinic is provided primarily by the Clinic’s Director, Professor Alan Weinstein, who holds a joint appointment in the College of Law and the College of Urban Affairs; and by other faculty and graduate students of the Urban College.
The Urban Development Law Clinic
The law school’s Urban Development Law Clinic provides legal advice and counsel to nonprofit community organizations active in restoring Northeast Ohio’s declining neighborhoods. Student work in the Clinic covers a wide range of topics including, real estate and economic development projects; tax matters; employment issues; contracts; environmental remediation; and corporate governance. The Clinic is at the forefront of addressing the issue of vacant and abandoned housing in Cleveland: it provides legal counsel to community development corporations (CDCs) in redevelopment projects, including those undertaken as court-appointed receivers for property under the jurisdiction of the Cleveland Municipal Housing Court. It has been commissioned to do a study to assess current public policies and programs on abandoned vacant property and develop a legislative agenda to address this issue.
Students work as practitioners under the supervision of the Clinic’s staff attorneys taking increased responsibility for cases and matters as they gain experience and hone practice skills. In the first semester of the two semester sequence, weekly seminars are devoted to building knowledge of clients, the law of nonprofit corporations and of community development, practice skills and professional responsibilities. In the second semester, the weekly seminars focus more on the specific work in cases and matters on the Clinic’s practice docket at that time.
Professor Alan Weinstein is the Director and Clinical Professors Kermit Lind, Pamela Daiker Middaugh, and Carole Heyward staff the Urban Development Law Clinic.