Justice for All
LAW Students Serve the Public Interest
By Jean Hennelly Keith
Photographs by Kalman Zabarsky
Brendan Doherty was a third-year student at the School of Law when he got his first case: a former political activist from Democratic Republic of the Congo seeking asylum in the United States. Doherty was working in the Civil Litigation Clinic, and over the course of a year he came to think of the young man as a friend. But "given the consequences that could certainly result if I lost this case - persecution, torture, execution," Doherty says, he also felt great pressure to win.
Doherty is among the many LAW students participating in public interest programs, which are available all over the country and the world, in LAW clinics, summer internships, externships, and a variety of organizations. The Civil Litigation Clinic, for instance, is co-sponsored by the law school and Greater Boston Legal Services.
From working with the Neighborhood Defense program in Harlem, which provides criminal and civil defenders as well as youth outreach, to assisting Actione, an international microfinance organization, LAW students serve the public interest through litigation and policy advocacy. "The goal," says Maura Kelly, associate director of career development at the school, "is to infuse the notion that public service should be part of one's life."
Although never officially charged, the Congolese man, who had been involved in a church the government viewed as a political opponent, was detained and tortured on numerous occasions, managing to come to the United States on a student visa a few years ago. Once here, he learned that his government was still after him.
Doherty (LAW'06) was assigned the case under the supervision of Susan Akram, a LAW clinical associate professor and a specialist in immigration and refugee law. Balancing classes with the clinic can be a challenge for law students. "Should I read for this class and maybe work on this paper," Doherty says, "or should I be working on this case for someone who could possibly go back to a country and be tortured?" The students' "realization that possibly people could lose their lives, that this rides on their work, is a tremendous driving force to do their best," notes Akram, "and they do beyond their best."
Everyone in the clinic works hard, Doherty says - "Students just really put their hearts into it." Akram recalls a night Doherty spent on the Greater Boston Legal Services floor waiting for a faxed affidavit from the Congo for a hearing the next day. Because asylum cases can run for years and students spend just a year at the clinic, a case often will be handled by several students consecutively. Akram and other faculty members in their respective clinical areas provide the continuity. By the time Doherty inherited the case, it had been in the works for more than a year.
The case included nine hearings. His client had already given direct testimony and been cross-examined, so Doherty's initial job was to prepare eyewitnesses for direct and cross-examinations. He also prepared a medical expert witness, who examined the client's scars and verified that they were consistent with his story, as well as a country expert, who provided the context of the Congo's political and religious atmosphere.
Then, in the midst of the trial, the judge retired, and the new judge ordered a credibility assessment, forcing the client to take the witness stand again. "In asylum hearings," Doherty says, "a credibility finding - whether or not the person who's before the judge is telling the truth - is a very big issue." Asylum seekers often don't have documents to prove their claims. Repeating his testimony was very tough for Doherty's client. "Each time he set foot in that room," says Doherty, "it reopened wounds."
Doherty won the case. His client, deliriously happy to be granted asylum in this country, told him, "You know my story better than I do, don't you?" Doherty had "gone through his story so many times," he says, "I just knew the details as if it was my own."
This fall Doherty begins a job with the U.S. State Department's Office of War Crimes Issues, where he will monitor a designated region abroad for war crimes and work on developing related U.S. foreign policy. His public interest experience at LAW and his attraction to a career he describes as "helping others, while at the same time helping yourself," have led him to this civil service post.
"That clinic is the single most important thing I've ever done for another individual," says Doherty. "The stakes were high, but the payoff was even higher." He found the case humbling. "For me, the focus was less on immigration law and more on what I learned about individuals who have such difficulties and how to help them. In some ways, that's really what the law is about - how to advocate for those who can't advocate for themselves."
The Rules in Action
Thousands of people go through the U.S. courts each year "with no lawyer at all or with a lawyer who does not have the time, resources, or in some cases the inclination to provide effective representation," according to a 2004 report by the American Bar Association. Manuel Velez (LAW'06) saw the problem firsthand when he worked with public defenders in Boston Municipal Court last semester. Despite their professionalism, "often their caseloads are so large that sometimes clients don't get as much individual focus," he says. In contrast, because he and his fellow students in LAW's Criminal Law Clinic had far fewer cases, they could concentrate more on each one. "We're young and optimistic," he says. "We're more willing to try motions, even if there's only a small chance of success." He sees the value of public interest law as addressing "certain gaps in our society."
Preparing for a career with a law firm, Velez joined the Criminal Law Clinic to gain experience as an advocate in court. This was his first expo-sure to people accused of crimes, and he says that initially he was concerned about his ability to connect with them. But he discovered that many of his clients led tragic lives, that the system has sometimes failed them. "You start to understand why they do the things that they do," he says, "and you can't help but be kind of on their side."
Among the defendants in his eight cases was a Middle Eastern woman accused of larceny. Prosecutors wanted a continuance without a finding, meaning that the charge would be pending but the matter would be dropped in a few years if the defendant was not arrested again. But for an immigrant, according to Velez, that disposition could result in deportation. Young and single, his client was afraid to return to her country, where she had no family. With the guidance of clinic director David Rossman, a LAW professor, who played devil's advocate during rehearsals, Velez and his team "investigated every avenue, rehearsed, and anticipated objections," he says, and finally succeeded in getting the case dismissed. Although gratified and pleased for his client, Velez says that "it's not my job to determine guilty or not guilty, just to make sure that the commonwealth presents proper evidence and that procedure is followed. It's up to the judge and jury."
This fall he begins a clerkship for a federal district judge in his native Puerto Rico. He regards the clinic as his best experience at LAW. "The evidence and criminal procedure courses came alive," he says. "I learned how to apply the rules; I saw them in action."
Morally Satisfying
The Criminal Law Clinic also serves juvenile defendants, and for Deidrie Buchanan (LAW'06), this has become a passionate commitment. A participant in the clinic last fall, she found that she loved working with these children. She was surprised that many of her clients came from homes with two concerned parents, but "somehow, some way, the kids just decided to get involved with the wrong kind of crowd." Her mission was to "try to help get them on the right path," she says.
With a career advocating for juvenile rights, perhaps as a public defender, in mind, she is
clerking this year at the Juvenile Court Department of Massachusetts. Buchanan and her student colleagues in the juvenile program of the Criminal Law Clinic, under the supervision of Wendy Kaplan, a clinical associate professor, defended children aged seven to seventeen accused of misdemeanors ranging from driving without a license to armed robbery ("It was a BB gun, thank God," Buchanan says). She soon learned to interview juveniles away from their parents. "Oftentimes they're not going to tell you a thing in front of their parents," she says. She made bail arguments, amazed that in some cases parents preferred that their children remain in custody in the hope that a night in detention might provide a wake-up call. "You'd have to explain that it's not going to be one night; it's going to be until the next court date," she says, counseling parents to avoid making these decisions in anger.
An important part of Buchanan's role was to consult with a prosecutor at a pretrial hearing to make a joint recommendation to the judge. "Based on my interactions with the child and the parents, seeing what exactly the problem was, I'd tell the prosecutor what I thought was really appropriate for this child," she says. "For example, if a child seemed to be really angry for no particular reason, as part of the sentence I would try to incorporate anger management." She believes that ideally the juvenile court should try to discover what leads a child astray and attempt to find a solution before the young person becomes hardened. "If you had asked me when I started law school, I probably would have said I'd like to work in something corporate," Buchanan says, "but I just have found that, for me, juvenile is the most morally satisfying aspect of the law."
Policy Pros
Kendra Kinscherf (LAW'07) worked at the Conservation Law Foundation during the summer of 2005. "Some think that environmental work isn't public interest because you don't always have a specific client," she says, "but I believe it is."
Researching and writing to support environ-mental litigation and policy, she focused mainly on CLF's studies on the impact of storm water on the Charles River. Included in her research was the legal basis for interacting with the Department of Conservation and Recreation to ensure that it "does all it can to stem the runoff through buffers and better drainage on the roads and in the parking lots along the Charles," she says.
With a master's degree in environmental management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the BU law degree she'll receive next May, she plans on a career in environmental law and land use, hoping eventually to work for a land trust. "I would love to work for an organization like CLF that combines science and policy with legal work," she says.
Recent grad Edelina Burciaga (LAW'05) also has experience in public interest policy with a highly regarded organization. For nearly a year, Burciaga has been working in education law with the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI), which advocates for communities rather than representing individuals. A Latina who believes that Latinos here haven't had an effective voice to represent them, Burciaga works with a small community in central Massachusetts whose middle and high school population is about 50 percent Latino. Between 40 and 70 percent of these students performed below the average for the school district on the mandatory exams for Massachusetts public school students. She goes to the town several times a month to meet with students, parents, and teachers and to encourage collaborations among them. She sees the Latino students, who she says are bright and articulate, as disconnected from school and their parents as disenfranchised. She is exploring strategies to create educational change and to boost parents' confidence, teaching them how to interpret report cards and test results. "The goal of MLRI is to have the schools take the concerns of the parents and students into consideration," she says. Burciaga wants to earn a doctorate in education and work "in the area where law, education, and policy meet." She hopes to improve education for poor students of color. "Policy advocacy will always be a part of what I do," she says.
Top-notch Representation
"We are trying to prepare students to resolve disputes," says Robert Burdick, a clinical associate professor and director of the Civil Litigation Clinic. At the clinic, second- and third-year law students, with limited licenses to practice law in civil cases and under the oversight of full-time LAW faculty advisors, represent indigent clients in cases that include divorce and eviction and other housing-related matters, as well as Social Security disability, unemployment compensation, and immigration appeals. "They really get the fundamentals of the practice of law."
Akram likens a year in the clinic to the first year in a law firm. "Our philosophy in the clinic is that it's the student who's the lawyer," she says. "We are the second tier." To support that philosophy, a tremendous amount of preparation is required, including role playing and practice, preparation review by faculty advisors, and "hours and hours of meetings with students and clients before going to hearings. We have models of everything we teach them," she says, "for interviewing, counseling, and negotiation."
The Criminal Law Clinic, on the other hand, deals with criminal cases - drug dealing, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, or larceny, for example. Clinic students act on behalf of people who can't afford to hire a lawyer. "What the clients get is really top-notch representation," says clinic director Rossman, "because what the students lack in experience, they more than make up for in their intelligence, their training, and most of all, their enthusiasm and the amount of time they put in."
Through their work in the clinics and other public interest programs, School of Law students give their clients "access to the justice system that they otherwise wouldn't have," says Maureen O'Rourke, dean of LAW. "I think it enhances the clients' faith in the system of government we have, and I think that's important." Since September 11, she adds, "one lesson should be that we all have an obligation to look out for each other and an obligation to look out for those who don't have the means to hire an attorney."
LAW's Kelly says that the legal profession is taking a look at itself. "We used to be considered a noble profession, but if large groups of people don't have access to the services, what good is the system?" she asks. "We must rely on the next generations to carry on public interest."
