The Criminal Justice Experience

Teaching Staff

General Information

• Time Commitment
• Conflicts of Interest
• Investigation

Open House

Selection Criteria/
Application Process

Current Students

**SUPPLEMENTAL** APPLICATION

The Criminal Justice Clinic (CJC) offers students the opportunity to engage in the practice of criminal law by serving as defense counsel in misdemeanor cases in the District of Columbia Superior Court and in parole revocation hearings before the United States Parole Commission.  Through classes and closely supervised practice in these two areas, students in the CJC develop the knowledge and skills needed to practice law. 

In our criminal cases we represent clients who are charged with ­­assault, assault on a police officer, drug possession, theft, shoplifting, unlawful entry, destruction of property, contempt, shoplifting, threats, prostitution, or weapons offenses.  Our parole clients have previously been convicted of more serious offenses and are facing revocation of their parole either because they have been accused of violating a condition of their parole or because they have allegedly committed a new criminal offense.  The criminal cases in Superior Court make up the majority of the student’s caseload and are supervised by the CJC’s faculty and fellow.  Parole cases, which are supervised by attorneys from the parole division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS), give our students the opportunity for individual client representation in a different litigation forum. 

Students meet their client for the first time in the cellblock in Superior Court before his or her first appearance in court.  The student’s first task is to interview her client and prepare an argument to convince the judge that under the statutes and rules governing pre-trial release, the client should be released pending trial.  After the first appearance, the student embarks on the myriad tasks involved in representing someone charged with a crime.  To prepare our students for this representation, clinic classes provide intensive instruction in constitutional criminal procedure, pretrial and trial skills, sentencing advocacy, and legal ethics. The pretrial skills of client interviewing and counseling, fact investigation, negotiation, and theory development are taught in classes and honed in small group simulations.  The trial skills involved in motions practice, opening statement, cross examination, direct examination, objections, and closing argument are taught through assigned readings, classes, demonstrations, and small group simulations with individual feedback.  Other classes focus on the ethical decisions involved in reconciling the obligation of zealous representation with other ethical obligations of a defense lawyer, as well broader topics such as the impact of race and class on the criminal justice system and the efficacy and fairness of that system. 

Students do not work in teams and they work only on direct client representation in individual cases in which the student acts as the attorney under faculty supervision.  We believe that students learn best when they 1) have a strong grounding in the theory of representation, 2) have the opportunity to practice the skills necessary for representation in simulations and receive abundant feedback on their performance, 3) prepare carefully with close supervision to perform as lawyers, 4) act as lawyers, under careful supervision, in real cases for which they are completely responsible, with all of the unpredictability that role entails, and 5) have the opportunity to review their performance after each stage of the representation and learn from it.  The experienced lawyers and teachers in the CJC strive to insure both that the students benefit from an ex­traordi­nary educational experience and that their clients benefit from extraordinary representation from our students. 

While criminal litigation skills are the major focus of the CJC, the lawyering skills developed in the clinic are applicable beyond criminal practice.  Students learn to apply a complex array of law from the constitution, statutes and case law to the often changing fact scenarios in a case in order to attain their client’s goals.  Students learn judgment and problem solving by creating alternatives for attaining those goals and analyzing the likely outcome of each.  Students learn respectful client-centered counseling to involve and empower their clients in the decision-making regarding their cases.

Because every case is unique and outcomes are determined by factors beyond our control, we ­cannot promise that each student will actually conduct a trial in court.  Even so, every case presents myriad learning opportunities, and almost every criminal case provides some litigation experience before a judge.

The students will be intensively supervised by Professors John Copacino and Vida Johnson and Prettyman Fellow Emily Stirba, and Adjunct Professors from the Public Defender Service who oversee the parole cases.  Lindsey Dressler, our staff investigator, teaches investigation and oversees the investigation of cases.

PROF. JOHN M. COPACINO:  B.A., M.A.T., Duke; J.D., University of Virginia; LL.M., Georgetown. Professor Copacino has been on the faculty of the Criminal Justice Clinic since 1987.  He has also been the director of the Criminal Law and the Juvenile Law clinics at Antioch School of Law and the Suffolk Defenders criminal defense clinic at Suffolk Law School.  Prof. Copacino was the third recipient of the Law Center’s Frank Flegal Teaching Award, given annually for outstanding contributions by full-time faculty to teaching at the Law Center.  He has tried criminal cases in the Superior Court since 1979, serving as lead trial counsel in hundreds of felony cases.  He continues to represent clients in serious felonies and post-conviction litigation.  He is actively involved in efforts to improve the practice of criminal law in the District of Columbia.  He is a former chair of the Steering Committee of the D.C. Bar’s Criminal Law and Individual Rights Section and serves on numerous Superior Court Criminal Division committees.  He regularly participates in local and national training programs for criminal defense lawyers.  

VISITING PROFESSOR VIDA JOHNSON:  Prior to joining Georgetown University Law Center, Prof. Johnson was a supervising attorney in the Trial Division at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS), where she worked for eight years. At PDS Ms. Johnson was assigned to the most serious cases at the “Felony One” level, and her experience included numerous trials in D.C. Superior Court representing indigent clients facing charges including homicide, sexual assault, and armed offenses. Ms. Johnson’s responsibilities at PDS also included supervising other trial attorneys and serving as one of the agency’s two representatives to the D.C. Superior Court Sentencing Guidelines Commission. In 2009, Ms. Johnson was a Visiting Associate Professor in the Juvenile Justice Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center. Before joining PDS, Professor Johnson was an E. Barrett Prettyman fellow at Georgetown University Law Center. As a fellow she represented indigent adults in the D.C. Superior Court and supervised students in the Criminal Justice Clinic. Ms. Johnson earned her law degree from New York University Law School in 2000 and she earned her B.A. in American History from the University of California, Berkeley in 1995.

PRETTYMAN FELLOW EMILY STIRBA:  Emily received a B.A. in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs from Princeton University in 2004 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 2010.  During law school, Emily participated in the Prison Legal Services clinic where she represented prisoners challenging conditions of confinement in Connecticut state and federal prisons.  Emily also spent three semesters in the Immigration Legal Services clinic representing immigrants in asylum, cancellation of removal, and post-asylum proceedings, as well as a semester interning in the New Haven Juvenile Public Defenders office.  She spent her summers working as a legal intern for the ACLU and a law clerk for the Orleans Public Defenders.

A. Time Commitment

The Clinic is demanding and time consuming.  Students are required to return to school one week before classes begin to participate in an intensive orientation program.  This year the orientation will begin on Monday, August 22, 2011.  Participation in the orientation is a requirement of the clinic and no exceptions will be made.  This intensive orientation gives students the opportunity to become immersed in making the transition from students to lawyers without the distraction of other responsibil­ities. 

After the orientation, the Clinic meets for class twice each week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:30-5:30 p.m.  Based on the number of credits they receive, students can expect to work an average of approximately 25 hours per week on clinic and casework, although the actual hours vary considerably depending on the scheduling of trials and hearings.  Our students generally find that there is a greater overall time commitment in the clinic during the fall semester than the spring semester, as they are devoting more time to learning the essentials of litigating a case for the first time.  (For this reason, the credits allocated to the clinic are 9 for the fall semester and 5 for the spring semester.)  Because our clients’ freedom is at stake in each case, we expect that clinic work will take precedence over most other activities in a student’s life when necessary.  Students are encouraged to arrange their sched­ules so that one day each week (prefera­bly a Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday) is completely free from class or employment responsibilities.  All students are responsible for cases over class breaks and finals, but we can usually schedule around these times.  We expect that students will be responsible for their cases through graduation. 

B. Conflicts of Interest

A rigid federal conflict of interest statute precludes students who are employed by the Federal Government from participating in the Clinic, because the United States is the prosecuting authority in the District of Columbia.

C. Investigation

To be a competent attorney, a student must learn how to conduct fact investigation and must investigate each case thoroughly.  Lindsay Dressler, our experienced staff investigator, will train students in investigation, interviewing, and statement-taking.  Included in the training are techniques and procedures for minimizing danger.  Students work in pairs and follow established guidelines designed to ensure safety.  Howev­er, given the nature of our work and the urban location of our crime scenes, investigating cases involves some minimal risks.  We believe that investigating our cases is safe, and all of our supervisors regularly go into the field to investigate their own cases.  Nevertheless, if you are reluctant to take on the responsibility of investigating your cases, you should not enroll in this clinic.