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The Institute for Public Representation (IPR) is a public interest law firm and student clinic founded in 1971. Students at IPR work on projects in one or more of the clinic’s three major areas: 1) First Amendment and media law, 2) environmental law, and 3) civil rights/general public interest law. The Institute offers a high level of professional training and a variety of advocacy opportunities such as preparing comments and petitions for rulemaking to be filed with administrative agencies; drafting briefs and pleadings for use in court or in administrative agency proceedings; drafting testimony and comments on proposed legislation; participating in strategy sessions; presenting oral testimony before a variety of government bodies; and meeting with clients, other attorneys, and government personnel.
Students benefit from regular participation in the process of decision making and the careful preparation of legal documents, under the day-to-day, hands-on supervision of the IPR faculty and staff attorneys. Those with an interest in public interest law as a career can obtain first-hand familiarity with the public interest law community and the kinds of clients, both individual and organizational, served by public interest lawyers. Those who might be considering other kinds of legal work will also profit from the insights the clinic provides into the litigation and administrative processes and from exposure to the world of complex law practice involving real cases and real clients. IPR students have an opportunity to obtain a greater understanding of their roles as attorneys and the responsibility of lawyers in our society through their work on projects, as well as through participation in weekly seminars and small group meetings.
In applying to the clinic, students indicate the areas in which they would like to work. Students accepted will be assigned to work within a particular area. The projects offered in each area vary depending on client need and other factors. The following list of projects recently undertaken in IPR illustrates the types of cases students may work on.
First Amendment and Media Law
Projects
- representing the Media Council Hawai`i in challenging a broadcaster’s takeover of a third local television station and elimination of independent local newscasts
- filing a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission alleging that the marketing of “educational videos” for children aged two and under is deceptive and unfair;
- working with public health organizations to limit the marketing of junk food to children
- developing proposals for promoting media ownership opportunities for minorities and women that can withstand expected constitutional challenges;
- filing briefs in federal court appeals of FCC rulings concerning ownership limits, indecency, and public interest obligations of television stations
- filing comments in the FCC’s rulemaking review of broadcast ownership limits
- filing comments with the Federal Trade Commission seeking limits on the use of behavior advertising to children and to protect children’s privacy
Environmental
Projects
- assisting a national preservation organization with its legal challenge to a proposal by federal agencies to tear down 165 buildings in an historic district of New Orleans for the construction of two new hospitals in violation of applicable federal law;
- litigating against the federal government to collect attorneys fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act after prevailing in two separate challenges to agency actions in violation of applicable federal laws;
- drafting a rulemaking petition on behalf of a national environmental organization to be filed with the Federal Highway Administration seeking regulation of digital billboards;
- assisting national and local environmental organizations protesting the proposed transfer of national parkland to the District of Columbia to allow construction of a baseball academy and a large ice skating rink;
- challenging the District of Columbia’s non-disclosure of public documents pertaining to proposed development of a culturally and historically significant open space;
- assisting a national historic preservation organization and a regional environmental organization in their opposition to the placement of the Department of Homeland Security’s headquarters on the grounds of historic St. Elizabeth’s Hospital; and
- assisting a local waterkeeper organization in assessing the viability of a legal challenge under federal law to a federal agency’s written guidance on water pollution management.
Civil Rights/General
Public Interest Law Projects
- representing two workers in a suit alleging retaliation for exercising their rights under a landmark employment discrimination class action settlement against an agency of Congress;
- filing and litigating individual race discrimination claims against a large federal agency on behalf of African-American workers who were unfairly denied promotions;
- writing federal court of appeals briefs challenging the constitutionality of a Virginia statute that bars non-Virginians from obtaining government records available to Virginians;
- working on a federal rulemaking petition and organizing a government-wide strategy to improve the Equal Access to Justice Act, the principal statute that authorizes an award of attorney fees to individuals and small businesses that successfully oppose unreasonable federal agency action;
- representing a scientist in his administrative appeal of the federal government’s decision to deny him a high-ranking position as a government scientist on the ground that he willfully evaded his responsibility to register with the Selective Service Agency;
- providing appellate representation to the victim of nursing home malpractice in an effort to strike down the nursing home’s mandatory arbitration clause eliminating our client’s day in court;
- filing a federal Freedom of Information Act suit seeking records related to Karl Rove’s political activities while a government employee and his role in the U.S. Attorney firings; and
- preparing two suits challenging state laws that prohibit migrant legal services programs from gaining access to government records essential to the protection of migrant workers’ employment rights.
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Hope Babcock,
Professor of Law, directs IPR’s Environmental Project. She joined IPR in the fall of 1991, after spending 11 years at the National Audubon Society, directing its Public Lands and Waters program and serving as Audubon’s General Counsel for five of those years. Professor Babcock graduated from Yale Law School in 1966, was in private practice here in Washington for many years, and also served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy and Minerals at the U.S. Department of Interior during the Carter Administration. In addition to her extensive litigation experience, Professor Babcock has taught environmental law at Penn, Yale, Pace, Catholic, and Antioch, and has written on topics concerning environmental, natural resources and public lands law as well as environmental justice and Indian law. She also teaches courses in environmental and natural resources law at GULC. She has served on the boards of several public interest environmental organizations, as well as on National Academy of Sciences Committees and various governmental advisory committees. She was Chair of the Natural Resources Section of the AALS.
Angela Campbell,
Professor of Law, has been teaching at IPR since 1988, and directs IPR’s First Amendment and Media Law Project. She graduated from UCLA School of Law in 1981 where she was editor-in-chief of the Federal Communications Law Journal. She spent two years as a Staff Attorney at IPR. After leaving IPR, she practiced law at the firm of Fisher, Wayland, Cooper & Leader, and at the Communications and Finance Section of the Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Campbell’s work at IPR is in the areas of communications law and policy. She is particularly interested in the regulation of mass media and new technologies, such as the Internet. She has published articles on media self-regulation, advertising on the Internet, children’s television regulation, universal service, first amendment rights of telephone companies, and legal writing.
Brian Wolfman,
Visiting Professor of Law, joined the faculty in 2009 after spending nearly 20 years at the national public interest law firm Public Citizen Litigation Group, serving the last five years as the Litigation Group’s Director. Before that, for five years, he conducted trial and appellate litigation as a staff lawyer at a rural poverty law program in Arkansas. Professor Wolfman has handled a broad range of litigation, including cases involving health and safety regulation, class action governance, court access issues, federal preemption, consumer law, public benefits law, and government transparency. He has argued five cases before the Supreme Court (winning four) and dozens of other cases before federal and state appellate courts and trial courts around the country. He directed Public Citizen’s Supreme Court Assistance Project, which helps “underdog” public interest clients litigate before the U.S. Supreme Court. He has testified before Congress and federal rules committees, and he is an Advisor to the American Law Institute’s project on the Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation. Before joining the Georgetown faculty, he regularly taught a course on appellate courts at Harvard Law School and previously taught a variety of courses at Georgetown, Stanford, Vanderbilt, and American.
Adrienne Biddings received her JD, cum laude, from the University of Florida College of Law with a joint M.A. degree in Mass Communications. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Communications from the University of Miami. During law school, she was executive research editor for the Florida Entertainment Law Review and a research assistant for the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations. She also taught Telecommunication Law and Regulation at the University of Florida. In summer 2008, she worked as a law clerk in Comcast’s legal & regulatory department in Washington, DC. Prior to attending law school, Adrienne worked as a promotions producer for an ABC affiliate in Miami, FL and technical director for a public access channel in Wilmington, NC.
Leah Nicholls received her B.A. in History and Philosophy, summa cum laude, and her M.A. in History from Boston University in 2004. She earned a J.D., Order of the Coif, and an L.L.M in International and Comparative Law in 2007 from Duke University School of Law, where she was the Editor-in-Chief of the Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law and the recipient of the David H. Siegel Memorial Scholarship and the Justin Miller Citizenship Award. During law school, Leah worked at Carolina Legal Services, the Arizona Center for Disability Law, and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and worked as a student attorney in Duke’s Guantánamo Defense, Children’s Education, and Poverty Law clinics. After graduation, Leah clerked for the Honorable Harriet O'Neill of the Supreme Court of Texas. Prior to joining IPR, Leah served as the Supreme Court Assistance Project Fellow at Public Citizen Litigation Group.
Guilherme Roschke has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and a JD from The George Washington University Law School. Following law school, Guilherme was awarded a Skadden Fellowship at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, DC. His fellowship focused on protecting the privacy of victims of domestic violence, and included individual representation, technical assistance and policy work. Following his fellowship, Guilherme was a staff attorney at the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic Violence, where he provided technical advice and developed trainings for lawyers representing victims of domestic violence. Prior to law school, Guilherme was a computer programmer with experience in corporate, non-profit and scientific environments. He often volunteered his technical and organizing skills for media activism projects. Guilherme is a member of the District of Columbia and New York bars.
Margie Sollinger came to IPR after working at Bread for the City, a nonprofit social services organization, where she provided direct representation to persons living in poverty. She received her B.A. in biology and environmental studies from Carleton College and her J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School, where she was an editor for the Journal of Law and Inequality. Her work experience during school included positions at the Center for Biological Diversity, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, the Better Government Association, and Pine Tree Legal Assistance. Following law school she clerked for the Honorable Warren M. Silver on the Maine Supreme Court. Margie lives in Northeast D.C. with her partner, Andy, a staff attorney at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, and their rescue dog, Elf.
In addition to the above staff members, we will have one other newly hired staff attorney.
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The work undertaken by students at IPR has a critical impact on the lives of our clients and on improving the laws affecting under-represented persons and groups. Moreover, students completing the required work at IPR receive twelve credits. To represent clients zealously and energetically, as well as to meet academic requirements, students who enroll in IPR must make a serious, ongoing commitment of time to their clinical work.
IPR expects that you will spend at least 32 hours each week during “normal business hours” in our offices, elsewhere at the Law Center (i.e., the Library or one of the Clinic Work Rooms), or at out-of the-office meetings or hearings working on your project(s). IPR conducts weekly two-hour seminars and holds project case rounds, which average between one and two hours, each week, as well. Accordingly, separate from, and in addition to, time spent on projects, we expect you to devote the time necessary to prepare for and attend seminars and rounds, which we estimate will take an additional 5 hours of work a week. Preparation for seminars and rounds does not need to take place in our offices or the Law Center.
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