Study

The International Human Rights Clinic provides students with an opportunity to critically engage with human rights issues, strategies, tactics, institutions, and law in both domestic and international settings. Through the weekly seminar and fieldwork, students will develop practical tools for human rights advocacy—such as fact-finding, litigation, indicators, reporting, and messaging—that integrate inter-disciplinary methods and maximize the use of new technologies. Students will also develop core competencies related to managing trauma in human rights work, as well as the ethical and accountability challenges in human rights lawyering. Types of clinic projects include those that: apply a human rights framework to domestic issues; involve human rights advocacy abroad; engage with international institutions to advance human rights; and/or address human rights in U.S. foreign policy. Students work closely with local organizations, international NGOs, and U.N. human rights experts and bodies. Students are required to have taken Human Rights Advocacy (offered only in the Fall) as a pre-requisite or co-requisite. There is no ethics requirement for this course. Some travel will likely be involved. Student project teams will also meet at least once a week with the clinic instructors. Students work on clinic projects for a minimum of either 100 or 125 hours of clinical work during the semester. This course may not be dropped after the first class meeting.

The Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic is an interdisciplinary clinic that represents non-profit community-based and environmental organizations throughout the region to address a wide variety of environmental concerns in a variety of different venues. Students work in interdisciplinary teams and engage directly with clients to develop legal and advocacy strategies, conduct site-based assessments, develop legislative and regulatory proposals, and participate in community outreach and education efforts. Students also may engage in litigation, regulatory, and policy proceedings as case needs dictate. Skills training is conducted in weekly seminars and case management meetings and emphasizes client counseling, legal and policy advocacy, networking and working with experts. Although the mix of topics addressed varies among semesters, common themes include environmental justice, climate change, water quality, natural resources conservation, endangered species protection, sustainable agriculture, public trust resources, and environmental health. Clinic faculty make an effort to honor student preferences for case assignments, consistent with case needs and each student’s objectives for professional growth and development.

Clinic Enrollment and Credit Policies

To enroll, law students must have completed their 1L year; Nicholas School students may enroll after their first semester with permission from the clinic's directors. International LLM students may enroll during their second semester with permission from the clinic's directors. Variable credit (4-6 hours) is allowed for law students with permission from the clinic’s directors.

Although not a prerequisite, students are encouraged to have completed Environmental Law, Ocean and Coastal Law and Policy, and/or Administrative Law prior to enrollment.

Ethics Requirement for Law Students

Students are required to have instruction in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct prior to, or during, enrollment in the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. Examples of ethics classes that meet the requirement include Ethics in Action: Large Firm Practice (LAW 231), Ethics of Social Justice Lawyering (LAW 237), Ethics and the Law of Lawyering (LAW 238), Ethics and the Law of Lawyering in Civil Litigation (LAW 239), Criminal Justice Ethics (LAW 317) and Ethics in Action (LAW 539).

Important to Note: This course may not be dropped after the first class meeting. Students MUST be able to attend the day-long clinic intensive training session to enroll in this course.

The Wrongful Convictions Clinic pursues plausible claims of legal and factual innocence made by incarcerated people in North Carolina convicted of serious felonies. 

Students in the clinic study the causes of wrongful convictions, including mistaken eyewitness identification, false confessions, faulty forensic evidence, “jailhouse snitches,” and race. Student-attorneys work under the supervision of faculty to develop, manage, and litigate cases by carrying out a wide range of legal activities, including communicating with our clients, locating and interviewing witnesses about facts, gathering documents and records, drafting a range of legal documents and memos, working with experts, and helping to prepare for evidentiary hearings and oral arguments in state and federal courts. Most clinic cases do not involve DNA.

Many former students describe their time in the clinic, working to exonerate individuals incarcerated for crimes they didn't commit, as their most rewarding experience during law school.

This three-credit integrated externship will immerse students in the theory, practice, and politics of Movement Lawyering. The course proceeds in two parts: a weekly seminar and partner work. In the seminar, students learn the foundations and tactics of movement activism and discover how lawyers work with social movements to build power and create change In the partner work portion, students are paired with lawyers and organizers from the Law For Black Lives network to produce legal analyses, policy papers, legislative reviews, rapid response documents, outreach materials, and more, with a special emphasis on racial and reproductive justice. For more information about Law For Black Lives, see https://www.law4blacklives.org/clinical-cohort. Past and current projects include:

• Data collection and analysis on local police budgets
• Legal research on the viability of decarcerating people imprisoned during the War on Drugs
• Background research for a bill outlawing unauthorized pelvic exams in teaching hospitals
• Drafting a policy paper on the family policing system (often called the foster care system) and convening a working group
• Compiling geographic and demographic information for a project on infrastructure justice and food apartheid

Course enrollment is by application. Students interested in applying for the course should submit their CV and an approximately one-paragraph statement of interest about their background and why they would like to enroll in the course. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, beginning on Monday, November 11, until spaces are filled. Final decisions on enrollment will be made no later than Friday, December 6.

This 9-credit externship is one of three components of the Duke Law in DC experience, which also includes a seminar course and a substantial research paper. With the support of the Externship Administrator, students seek and secure a full-time externship position with a non-profit or government agency or office in Washington, DC. Duke Law in DC externship students have the opportunity to gain substantial hands-on experience in order to advance their academic and professional development while working under the supervision of an attorney on high-quality real-life work assignments.

Under the Duke Law Externship Program, a student must complete 50 hours of externship per externship credit; Duke Law in DC requires 450 hours of externship to be completed between the first day of classes and the last day of exams each semester. Students are required to submit bi-weekly reflection papers and hours logs to the Externship Administrator and course professor. Students will be graded on a credit/no credit basis, based on successful completion of the required externship hours and diligent submission of reflection papers and hours logs.

The Duke Law in DC externship program is open to second- and third-year law students, by permission only.

Please follow this link for details and rules governing externships: http://law.duke.edu/about/community/rules/sec3#rule3-25

9 credits / credit-no credit grading basis