New in Spring 2020, the Clinic is a central component of BU Law’s Risk Management & Compliance concentration, in which JD students explore the impact of legal and regulatory compliance on business operations, legal norms underlying compliance, and the role of ethics in regulatory and compliance practice.

From environmental law to privacy and information security, from health law to global commerce, and beyond, compliance lawyers work wherever the law requires institutions to detect and prevent illegal activities internally. The Clinic is designed to develop core skills and capacities that are transferrable across compliance practice contexts and substantive areas of law.

The Clinic is a one-semester, six-credit program, with three credits allocated to fieldwork and three credits to coursework.

We warmly welcome all applicants and remind students that Boston University policy prohibits discrimination against any individual on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, military service, pregnancy or pregnancy-related condition, or because of marital, parental, or veteran status, and acts in conformity with all applicable state and federal laws. This policy extends to academic programs, including School of Law’s Clinics and Externships. The Clinic works with students and BU’s Office of Disability & Access Services to arrange reasonable accommodations as appropriate.

Fieldwork

  • Lead the Clinic’s work with private-sector, public-sector, and NGO partners and clients across a range of fields and industries.
  • Learn to run internal compliance investigations.
  • Take on projects in global anti-corruption law and other compliance topics with broad social impact.
  • Hone skills in research, analysis, writing, fact investigation, interviewing, presentation, counseling, project management, and interprofessional collaboration

Coursework

In weekly seminars and problem-solving sessions, we practice key lawyering skills and discuss ongoing case and project work. At the same time, we think about the broader impact of and context for the compliance function. We will consider how legal and regulatory systems support – or fail to support – ethical individual and corporate conduct as well as public policy goals.

Program Highlights

Current students are:

  • Building and facilitating a multidisciplinary “tabletop exercise” for a Fortune 500 company to assess its responsiveness to “#MeToo” concerns
  • Collaborating with an NGO to evaluate enforcement activity on corrupt payments to foreign government officials in forced labor flows
  • Developing a model compliance policy and implementation plan for small nursing home businesses
  • Developing thought leadership on hot topics in regulatory compliance