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Students in Duke Law’s First Amendment Clinic don’t often argue federal appeals. Appellate litigation isn’t the clinic’s focus, and hearings are rarely granted by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over North Carolina.

But when opportunity knocked, Meghna Melkote JD ’25 was ready. Melkote, who had already won two moot competitions at Duke Law, argued before a panel of federal judges — and far more experienced opposing lawyers — on behalf of a client who had been arrested while exercising his First Amendment rights during a protest.

“I was so nervous, but I really wanted to do a good job for my client. It was always on my mind to represent him in the best and most effective way I could,” said Melkote, an aspiring litigator.

“It was, honestly, the coolest experience of my life. I always wanted to argue in court, and now I truly understand how special it was to get to do that while I was still in law school.”

Clinic director Sarah Ludington JD/MA ’92 called it “a confluence of talent and opportunity.”

“Our students get amazing hands-on experience doing discovery, writing summary judgment motions, even doing a hearing in a public records case or an open meetings law case,” she said. “But making the principal argument in the Fourth Circuit is something that you don't do until you’re a full partner in a law firm for about ten years. Having your first hearing in open court is serious litigation experience.” 

Amanda Martin, the clinic’s supervising attorney, noted that she’d never had a Fourth Circuit oral argument in 30 years of practicing First Amendment law in North Carolina.

Student-attorneys in the clinic represent clients in matters including defamation defense, social media blocking by public officials, and access to courtrooms, court records, and public meetings. They also advise individuals and organizations outlets on how to avoid defamation lawsuits and provide pre-publication review of stories and other written content that might be problematic. 

A recent defamation defense case involved a client who was sued for publishing a website with links to documents that were already publicly available. A student team collaborated with co-counsel in Florida, where the case was filed, to ready the case for trial, then prepared the client for a court-ordered mediation that resulted in a successful resolution.

“The clinic gives you the opportunity to see very clearly how you can directly impact someone else’s life through your work as a lawyer, like a subpoena defense or obtaining records,” said Ellen Goodrich JD ’23, who worked on the case. “Clinic is the first chance you get to actually be a lawyer. It gives you the skills to actually start.”

Goodrich leveraged her experiences into two year-long postgraduate fellowships advising journalists at the Student Press Law Center and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. She’s returned to the clinic as a fellow focusing on expanding access to public records and meetings at both the state and federal levels. 

While a student, Goodrich also worked on social media blocking cases. Martin has written on how state laws apply to posts by public officials and citizens’ comments in light of recent Supreme Court decisions on the issue. 

The clinic is frequently called to assist clients who have been blocked from the social media page of a town where official business is being posted, or where negative comments have been deleted — what the clinic argues is a form of viewpoint discrimination that is prohibited by the Constitution.

“If those social media sites are designated public forums, then the First Amendment limits the way that a government actor can limit speech in that forum,” Ludington explains.

“We’ve gotten policies changed in tiny towns where, if you're blocked from the town’s social media page or website and the town doesn't have a newspaper, you have no way of knowing what's going on. We care about our individual clients’ issues, but it’s also a pro-democracy, good government initiative.”

Students also get experience in drafting and filing amicus briefs in First Amendment cases that reach federal appellate courts and even the Supreme Court, most recently in Wilson v. Idaho, a petition to review a ruling against a man prosecuted for posting stickers in violation of a town ordinance.

The clinic is currently partnering with the ACLU on a civil lawsuit on behalf of reporters arrested when they did not leave a park as they were filming police at a demonstration. Students will likely have to defend against a motion to dismiss, providing active litigation experience in a core First Amendment issue of freedom of the press.