The Community Justice Project Experience

Faculty

Time Commitment

Selection Criteria/
Application Process

Current Clinic Students

**SUPPLEMENTAL** APPLICATION

The Community Justice Project is designed to offer students an opportunity not only to represent clients in cases from beginning to end but also to participate in a larger case in which they will use a broad range of problem solving skills.  The cases come from community sources and their subject matter will change based on community need. Currently we are handling unemployment hearings in which students handle two cases individually during the semester.  In these cases, students develop an attorney-client relationship, prepare necessary motions and discovery, and conduct direct and cross-examination and closing argument before an Administrative Law Judge.

The clinic also takes, as a part of its caseload, non-traditional cases—matters that challenge untraditional notions of lawyering because there is no obvious litigation strategy that will “solve” the problem. Such cases provide a platform for students to think strategically about the project of justice. Typically these projects fall within three different categories: policy/legislative, extraordinary remedies, and international. Students choose one project to work on during the semester. Our first year, students drafted a clemency petition and argued that petition before the Board of Pardons and Parole, wrote a white paper which will be published by a local NGO addressing how to improve the treatment of girls in the juvenile justice system, collaborated with the University of Alexandria, Egypt Law School clinic in assessing the impact of family courts on access to justice culminating in presentations in Alexandria, Egypt, conducted legislative advocacy to draft and pass a bill that would allow inmates 60 or older to see the parole board despite restrictions within their sentence, wrote regulatory comments regarding the Prison Rape Elimination Act, created a housing guide for individuals leaving prison, and created a survey for an NGO in India to identify problems facing sexually marginalized individuals. This past year, students have worked with a community in Southwest D.C. to organize around environmental health justice issues, produced a report and advocacy materials to improve delays in the D.C. Court of Appeals, and wrote a report for an NGO in Nepal about protection for victims of sexual violence. Students in the spring semester are continuing to work on environmental issues in Southwest D.C., developing policy materials for an organization that supports women with HIV, and developing training and strategy materials regarding the implementation of the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

The Community Justice Project cuts across many subject matter areas. The Clinic seminar and supervision meetings provide students with training and practice in many lawyering skills, assist them in reflecting on what it means to represent a client, and stimulate thinking broadly about the myriad ways to effect change within the legal system. Students in this clinic use multiple tactics to achieve client objectives, including litigation, advocacy, public relations, the use of media, lobbying, legislative and policy drafting and community organizing. The clinic embraces a focused and explicit use of clinical education to enhance the students’ commitment to social justice. In short, in addition to specific traditional legal skills, the Community Justice Project teaches students about the commitment that will sustain and energize people over the long haul, the tactics that can produce success in particular cases, and the sense of strategy that looks to long-term (perhaps very long-term) success and participation in a protracted struggle for justice.

The Community Justice Project Students:

1. Learn how lawyers handle problems by using a wide range of strategies including litigation, policy initiatives, international law, the media, public education and transactional activities. 
2. Enhance their communication skills, judgment, and reinforce the understanding that the law is not necessarily the answer to every problem.
3. Establish relationships with individual clients and are responsible for providing the client with excellent legal services.
4. Develop an ability to learn from experience, to think critically, and to act responsibly and with integrity.
5. Hone their ability to make grounded judgments and to articulate the source, reasons and consequences of their choices.
6. Experience working with clients and communities in defining what justice means to them and the role that the law can play in forging a community’s identity and supporting their resistance to oppression.
7. Experience a model in which justice cannot be measured solely through winning cases but constitutes a long-term process that encompasses victory and defeat.
8. Develop an appreciation for the complexity of working for social justice and the faith that they have the capacity to make a difference as a lawyer. 

The Community Justice Project Students will also:

1. Adjust to their roles as professionals;
2. Develop interpersonal and professional skills;
3. Get repeated opportunities to perform these skills and to develop a plan for improvement;
4. Learn how to learn from experience through guided reflection;
5. Elicit and receive feedback on their performances;
6. Identify individual learning goals and professional strengths and weaknesses; and
7. Understand the challenges of legal practice and develop a system for identifying and dealing with ethical issues.

Professor Jane Aiken, Director of the Community Justice Project, joined the Georgetown faculty in Fall 2007 after ten years at Washington University School of Law where she was the William M. Van Cleve Professor of Law. She was a Root-Tilden Scholar and graduated from New York University School of Law. She received her LLM from Georgetown Law Center as a fellow in the Center for Applied Legal Studies. She is well-known for her work in clinical legal education and evidence. While at Washington University, she was the Director of the Civil Justice Clinic, where the Clinic’s cases involved a wide array of legal issues focusing on abuse of power. These cases included domestic violence against women and children, clemency and parole, police brutality, municipal violations involving resisting arrest and habeas and Section 1983 complex litigation. Professor Aiken has taught evidence for 20 years. She is an American Bar Foundation Fellow and the co-chair of the ABA Women’s Subcommittee on Criminal Justice. She was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Tribhuvan Law Campus in Kathmandu, Nepal during the Fall of 2001 and continues her work there, particularly in the area of women’s rights. In 2000 and 2001, Professor Aiken was a Carnegie Scholar in the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Her research and writing include many articles about character evidence, domestic violence, and clinical pedagogy.

Colleen Shanahan is a clinical teaching fellow and supervising attorney at The Community Justice Project.  Before coming to Georgetown, Colleen was a litigator with Hangley Aronchick Segal & Pudlin in Philadelphia, PA, and Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, DC.  In private practice, Colleen litigated a wide variety of matters at the trial and appellate levels, including complex commercial disputes, criminal defense, professional malpractice and misconduct, and civil rights, and had an active pro bono practice that included post-conviction capital representation, criminal defense, asylum representation, landlord-tenant matters, and assistance to non-profit organizations.  Colleen has taught as an adjunct faculty member at Columbia Law School, and was a law clerk to the Honorable Michael M. Baylson of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and to the Honorable Jane R. Roth of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  She received her law degree from Columbia and her undergraduate degree from Princeton.  Before law school, Colleen taught English in Japan, worked for a non-profit studying education reform in the District of Columbia, and worked as a pollster and strategist for political and non-profit clients.

Anna Carpenter, clinical teaching fellow and supervising attorney at The Community Justice Project, joined Georgetown in 2011. She is also a Women's Law and Public Policy Fellow. Previously, Anna provided direct representation to low-income clients as an attorney with the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program where she worked in the HIV/AIDS Legal Services Project and Immigration Law Project. She helped low-income immigrant victims of violence obtain economic security and legal status in the United States and represented people living with HIV and AIDS in a range of civil law matters, including public benefits, landlord/tenant, estate planning and debt relief. In San Diego, Anna served as co-chair of the Women's Resource Fair, an event that provides legal, medical, and social services to hundreds of low-income and homeless women. Anna received her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. During law school, Anna participated in the Domestic Violence Clinic where she represented victims of violence in protection order cases. She interned with the Clark County Public Defender and the Rebecca Project for Human Rights. Before becoming an attorney, Anna worked in public policy and public relations, primarily as a policy associate at Futures Without Violence, where she advocated for federal policies to prevent violence against women and children. Anna has also served as a press spokesperson for a domestic violence agency and as a fundraiser on a Congressional campaign.

The Community Justice Project is demanding and time consuming.  Students are required to return to school before classes begin for a 3 day orientation program.  Students will work on two different types of cases.  The first type is chosen to ensure that students have a one-on-one client experience.  These cases can take considerable time in preparation and execution but generally there is some control over the timing of events.  Efforts can be made to reduce the possibility that hearing dates coincide with breaks, but occasionally students will be expected to work during those breaks or during the exam period. Students will also be working on larger cases that demand community involvement, work with media, legislatures, administrative agencies and NGOs.  Such interactions are unpredictable and some weeks working on these projects are likely to be more demanding than others.  Because this is not a clinic driven by subject matter, students can anticipate considerable time spent getting up to speed on the law related to their case or project. The design of this clinic is to prepare students for their lives as lawyers and to ensure that they have a wide array of problem solving skills and an increased comfort with exercising judgment.  We hope and expect that the benefit of this approach will overshadow the substantial time commitment.