Study

This clinic will develop and hone civil litigation skills in the context of working on actual cases in association with the Durham office of Legal Aid of North Carolina. Cases will focus on vindicating the rights of impoverished individuals or groups who cannot otherwise adequately find justice in the civil courts. Students will be directly supervised by Legal Aid attorneys, working in conjunction with the Clinic Director.  Cases may include prosecuting unsafe housing claims, defense of eviction claims, prosecuting unfair trade practice claims, and a variety of other matters. Initial classroom training in the various stages of civil litigation will be conducted by the Clinic Director, followed by weekly individual or group training sessions. Skill development will include interviewing clients/witnesses, assessment of cases, drafting of pleadings, drafting of discovery, taking of depositions, recognition of ethics issues, and actual court or agency appearances. All enrolled students will be required to provide a minimum of 100 hours of client legal work per semester as well as to participate in the weekly class and training sessions. Students must be in at least their fourth semester of law school to enroll in the clinic.Important: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.International LLM students who wish to enroll in the clinic must seek the permission of the Clinic Director prior to the enrollment period.An Advanced Civil Justice Clinic can be available for a second semester, with the permission of the Clinic Director.

Special Notes:

Class will meet for the first 6 weeks of the semester with individual meetings after that for the rest of the semester.

Enrollment Pre-/Co- Requisite Information

Students are required to have instruction in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct prior to participating in a clinic. The Law of Lawyering (Law 238) and Ethics in Action (Law 539) fulfill this prerequisite.

Fall 2014

Course Number	Course Credits	Evaluation Method	Instructor
429.01	Course Credits 4		Charles R. Holton
Sakai site: https://sakai.duke.edu/portal/site/LAW.429.01.F2014
Email list: LAW.429.01.F2014@sakai.duke.edu