Clinical Program

On September 6, 2018, the 2018-2019 Clinical Program student attorneys gathered for the Clinic's first swearing-in ceremony. The Hon. Tanya Jones Bosier '00 (D.C. Superior Court) presided.

A team of student attorneys from the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic (Andrew Levey, Ben Kessler, Hailie Ingman, Mariana Viera, and Ted Sotland) filed an amici curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in October. The students, arguing on behalf of individual authors and educators, urged the Court to affirm a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which held that plaintiffs may only sue for copyright infringement under Section 411(a) of the Copyright Act after the Copyright Office has issued a final action on an application for registration.

As a member of the working group comprising the Maryland Juvenile Lifer Parole Representation Project (MJLPRP), Professor Binny Miller, Co-Director of AUWCL's Criminal Justice Clinic, has recently shared in two pro bono awards: the 2018 Herbert S. Garten Special Project Award from the Maryland State Bar Association and the Alan J. Davis Award from the law firm Ballard Spahr. The Garten award recognizes a project that enhances legal services available to low-income people while the Davis award recognizes exemplary legal representation in a matter involving the public good.

Joseph Pileri, a Practitioner in Residence in the Community and Economic Development Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law, discusses the significance of the recent law in California that legalizes street vending across the state. The law prohibits local authorities from outright banning of street vending or treating any violation of street vending regulations as a criminal offense. It also requires the dismissal of any pending criminal prosecution brought under any local ordinance regulating or prohibiting sidewalk vendors. Pileri views the law as a major step in reversing the trend of “criminalizing microenterprise, by which cities raise barriers to entry for vulnerable entrepreneurs, unduly burden those entrepreneurs most at risk, and detract from the vibrancy of communities.”

In her recent op-ed “The Supreme Court’s Travel Ban Ruling — Replacing, Not Overruling Korematsu” published on The Hill, Professor Anita Sinha, director of AUWCL's International Human Rights Law Clinic, dissects the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling that upheld the last iteration of the Trump administration’s travel ban. Sinha discusses the winding path the case, Trump v. Hawaii, took to the Supreme Court as well as the administration’s national security justification relied on by the court in its decision.

Elizabeth Pinolini, a 2018-2019 Immigrant Justice Clinic student, recently received a prestigious Equal Justice Works Fellowship. Ms. Pinolini received the fellowship to design and implement a project that aims to reduce employment barriers for the transgender and gender non-conforming community in the greater Washington, DC area by focusing on community outreach, while providing direct services to individuals who are facing discrimination in the workplace, pursuing immigration relief, or updating identity documents. Whitman-Walker Health will serve as the host organization.

On June 25, 2018, American University Washington College of Law’s Economic Justice Program hosted "Immigrant Family Separation and Family Detention," a panel discussion which focused on why immigrant families are coming to the U.S., why they have been separated, and what is being done to combat these separations. The panel featured AUWCL Professors Anita Sinha and Jayesh Rathod, and Cori Alonso-Yoder, practitioner-in-residence of the Immigrant Justice Clinic. The panel was organized by Professor Ezra Rosser.

Cori Alonso-Yoder, a Practitioner-in-Residence in the Immigrant Justice Clinic at American University Washington College of Law, recently published a response to Sessions v. Dimaya on the George Washington Law Review’s On the Docket scholarly forum. Dimaya, which the U.S. Supreme Court decided on April 17, 2018, invalidated a provision of the Immigration & Nationality Act, calling for deportation of immigrants convicted of certain crimes as being unconstitutionally vague.  The decision is notable because conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the Court’s liberal justices to prevent the deportation of a man convicted of burglary.  Prof. Alonso-Yoder observes that Gorsuch arrives at this result using a conservative, textual reading of the Constitution that differs markedly from the reasoning of the liberal plurality.

On April 10, 2018, Sherley Cruz, a Practitioner-in-Residence in AUWCL's Civil Advocacy Clinic (CAC) presented at a town hall event. The event launched a recent report from the Just Pay Coalition that recommends strategic enforcement of labor laws to eliminate wage theft in Washington, DC.

While many AUWCL students recently spent their spring breaks decompressing on beaches and ski slopes, an International Human Rights Law Clinic (IHRLC) student group took advantage of the free time to interview refugees in Thailand about human rights abuses in their home country. Students Jeslin Panicker, Damir Siahkoohi, and Grace Yanagawa – under the supervision of IHRLC Practitioner-in-Residence Sherizaan Minwalla – worked with several refugee assistance organizations in Bangkok, where they spent five days collecting data and personal stories about why the refugees fled their home country.

Intellectual Property Law Clinic student attorneys Evelyn Kelley and Briana Whinnie at the Washington College of Law helped production company client Kekim Media clear the necessary legal hurdles to release “Silicon Valley: The Untold Story,” a documentary series now available on The Science Channel, a subsidiary of The Discovery Channel.

AUWCL and Immigrant Justice Clinic alumna Alejandra Aramayo ('16) has been selected as a 2018 Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow. After completing her clerkship with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Aramayo will work at Catholic Charities Community Services, providing front line immigration relief to low-income immigrants in the Lower Hudson Valley region of New York. AUWCL Clinical Program students or alumni have been selected for Immigrant Justice Corps fellowships for each of the past five consecutive years.

Cori Alonso-Yoder, a Practitioner-in-Residence in the Immigrant Justice Clinic at American University Washington College of Law, recently published a response to Jennings v. Rodriguez on the George Washington Law Review’s On the Docket scholarly forum.

The application deadline for students wishing to participate in the Clinic during the 2018-2019 academic year is Friday, February 16, 2018 at 5:00 p.m. EST. The Clinic Application, along with a schedule of the remaining small group sessions (all applicants must attend at least one), is on the Clinic’s website.

The February 2018 issue of Washington Lawyer magazine shines a spotlight on 11 distinguished D.C. bar members for their exemplary social justice advocacy work. Among them is Julia Saladino ’11, who has worked for the past five years at the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV). As a NNEDV staff attorney, Saladino is responsible for developing and maintaining WomensLaw.org, a nationwide toolkit for people experiencing domestic violence.

Interested in applying to Clinic for 2018-2019? At the Clinic Recruitment Kickoff, you will learn about our eleven live-client clinical opportunities and how to apply to the program. Most importantly, the Kickoff will feature a panel of current and former Clinic students to answer your questions.

American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL) is delighted to announce the selection of fellows for the Gallogly Family Foundation Public Interest Fellowship Program. Katherine Conway and Michelle Villegas are the second class from AUWCL to be selected for this prestigious fellowship.

American University Washington College of Law’s nationally recognized Clinical Program offers 10 in-house clinics throughout the year. One clinic in particular, devoted to civil advocacy, is held in the evening to accommodate part-time students, most of whom work full-time.

Women Enabled International (“WEI”) is an NGO based in Washington, DC that works at the intersection of women’s rights and disability rights to advance the rights of women and girls with disabilities around the world. WEI has asked the AUWCL Disability Rights Law Clinic (DRLC) to research the extent to which disabled people’s organizations (DPOs) have submitted shadow reports that have influenced the content of Concluding Observations (COs) from the UN Committee on the Rights of People with Disabilities issues.

A team of student attorneys from the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Clinic filed anamici curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in October. The students urged the Court to affirm a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which held that plaintiffs may only sue for copyright infringement under Section 411(a) of the Copyright Act after the Copyright Office has issued a final action on an application for registration. The brief was filed on behalf of individual authors and educators and was written by students Andrew Levey, Ben Kessler, Hailie Ingman, Mariana Viera, and Ted Sotland under the supervision of Professors Hillary Brill and Peter Jaszi.