Equal Justice Clinic

Courses

• Equal Justice Clinic - 4 credits
• Equal Justice Clinic - 1 credit

Professor: Jenny-Brooke Condon
Offered: Fall & Spring semesters
Credits: 5

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Introduction

Through impact litigation and direct service client representation, the Equal Justice Clinic challenges discrimination against non-citizens and works to advance the civil and constitutional rights of people who are incarcerated.  In addition to representing individual clients seeking parole and those subject to supervision, Professor Condon and her students regularly file amicus briefs in state and federal court on issues ranging from policing, bail reform, prisons, parole, and extreme sentences.  The four-credit casework component of the clinic develops students’ sense of individual responsibility to real clients while working collaboratively with other members of a legal team.

Currently clinic students are:

• Assisting in the preparation of constitutional litigation challenging discrimination against vulnerable workers;
• Challenging in state appellate court unlawful denials of release to clients eligible for parole and pursing a compassionate release petition in federal court under the First Step Act for a client who has shown extraordinary rehabilitation;
• Helping people sentenced to life imprisonment successfully obtain parole in the first instance before the State Parole Board and helping released clients address the civil legal barriers to reintegration after incarceration; and
• Pursuing resentencing for a client sentenced as a juvenile to a lengthy prison term and petitioning for a discharge from parole for a client who has successfully served more than a decade on parole.

In previous years, the clinic has:

• Successfully challenged before the New Jersey Supreme Court the denial of unemployment benefits to a person who lost his job due to baseless criminal charges;
• Helped secure disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act of information about private prison contractors’ financial stake in expanded immigration detention; and
• Served as class co-counsel to people challenging conditions at a local county jail.

The Seminar

The two-hour one-credit seminar meets weekly for strategy sessions about clinical projects and a skills curriculum focused on transferable lawyering skills, including client interviewing, crafting effective case theories, applying ethics in practice, legal writing, factual investigation, and cross-cultural competency/antiracist lawyering skills. Through a combination of skills instruction, simulations, and exercises, the seminar addresses core lawyering skills while also exposing students to topical issues of social justice with an emphasis on inhumanity and injustice in the criminal legal system. During the seminar, students engage in regular “case rounds” requiring each to present current issues in their cases, anticipate problems, strategize solutions, and think through the potential consequences of lawyering choices. The experience aims to develop and refine students’ lawyering skills, but most importantly to provide students with a foundation of ethical and reflective lawyering that will foster continued self-directed learning throughout their careers.