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Disability Law Clinic (B553)

People with disabilities face challenges to full participation in American society. Poor people with disabilities face the added challenges that poverty entails. These challenges are intensified when advocates, bureaucrats, and decision makers are insensitive to, or fearful or ignorant of the situations and needs of poor people with disabilities. Students in the Disability Law Clinic work with individual clients and disability rights groups to address discrimination and to access benefits and services designed to assist poor people with disabilities.

What is the Disability Law Clinic?

The Disability Law Clinic provides a structured educational and work experience to second- and third-year students interested in working with people with disabilities. Because students are assigned in pairs as the primary case handlers for their clients, they engage in all stages of case development from intake to appeals. Thus, they develop skills in client interaction, research, writing, advocacy, administrative practice, cultural competence, and collaboration. Opportunities to reflect on their lawyering in class and in supervision meetings encourages students to develop their identities as lawyers, including their approaches to problem-solving, decision-making, social justice, and professionalism.

Clinic fieldwork includes individual client representation and participation in community projects that advocate disability rights. Most individual cases involve claims for federal and state disability benefits at administrative hearings and appeals.

What will my time commitment be?

The clinic is a three-credit hour, one-semester course. Students attend two 90-minute classes a week for the first half of the course to learn basic law regarding Social Security and Medicaid disability benefits and lawyering skills. Many classes are structured around simulation exercises. In the second half, students meet bi-weekly for case rounds and then for three student-led classes that allow deeper reflection and collaborative learning on issues chosen by the students.

Because the individual client work is litigation-based, the intensity of clinic hours varies. On average, students devote 10-12 hours to their clinic work. This commitment includes 4 hours of scheduled office time per week and a weekly supervision meeting during the office hours.

Cases and projects have lives of their own, of course, and these often extend beyond the end of the academic semester. Students are not required to continue working past the end of classes, but some do, to bring their clients and projects to a good transition point.

How will I be evaluated?

Students receive ongoing feedback on their development as lawyers through the weekly supervision meetings. In addition, two formal evaluations occur at mid-semester and the end of the term. The mid-semester evaluation is a self-evaluation designed to allow time for correction and improvement in the student's learning. The final evaluation is conducted by the faculty supervisor and focuses on these areas of lawyering: decision-making and judgment, client interaction, advocacy, research, analysis, and writing, and professional responsibility. Final grades take into account both professional standards of practice and progress made by students during the semester.

Clinical faculty:

Carwina Weng, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, directs the Disability Law Clinic. Carwina has worked in legal services and clinical legal education in New York, Massachusetts, and Indiana. She has worked with survivors of domestic violence, people living with HIV/AIDS, tenants and tenant associations, and elderly and disabled clients. Her research focuses on multi-cultural lawyering.

I want to be a part of this...

Here's what you need to know about participating in the Disability Law Clinic (B553):

• Enrollment is limited to six second- and third-year students each semester.

• Pre- and co-requisites are Administrative Law, Poverty Law, Evidence, and, for students seeking certification under the student practice rule, Legal Professions.

• Permission of the faculty supervisor is required for enrollment.

• Returning students may serve as mentors to a new class of students, for independent clinical or research credit, with permission of the faculty supervisor.