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In the Street Law High Schools Clinic, law students teach one full-year or two semester-long elective course(s) in practical law to students in public senior high schools throughout the District of Columbia. In the 2008-2009 year, 22 classes are being taught in the 19 District of Columbia public senior high schools. This program began at GULC in 1972. Law students who have completed their first year of law school in either the full-time or the part-time division are eligible for the clinic.
Note: Students who take Street Law and who apply for a live-client clinic in a subsequent year (or vice versa), will be given the same preference in selection as students who have never taken a clinic (see Clinic Enrollment Policy #7).
The course in the high schools covers negotiations, criminal law and procedure, individual rights, torts, family law, consumer law and housing law. The highlight of the course is a city-wide mock trial tournament, in which teams of high school students coached by their law student instructors play the roles of lawyers and witnesses in mock trials conducted often times before D.C. Superior Court judges in D.C. Superior Court courtrooms. This year, the two preliminary rounds of the tournament, with nearly 24 simultaneous trials, will be held in the D.C. Superior Court from 6:00-9:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 19th and Monday, April 23rd. The mock trial championship will be held on Tuesday, April 26th at Georgetown Law Center. We encourage clinic applicants to attend and to score a mock trial at the Superior Court on April 19th and/or 23rd, or to attend the championship round on April 26th. Please contact the clinic office (662-9615) to register to be a scorer.
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Senior high school students typically take the year-long Street Law course as an elective. As a result of their participation in a Street Law course, high school students learn: (1) the basic structure of the legal system, including the relationship among legislatures, courts, and agencies, and how citizens relate to the lawmaking processes of each branch of government; (2) the fundamental constitutional rights, laws and processes involved in the criminal and juvenile justice systems, and pertaining to family, housing, and individual rights areas; and (3) the function and operation of trials and other legal proceedings.
In addition to learning about the practical law they encounter every day, students in Street Law courses acquire the skills citizens need to cope effectively with law and the legal system, including the ability to: (1) understand and use basic legal terminology; (2) read, comprehend, and complete legal forms such as contracts, leases, small claims court complaint forms, and credit applications; (3) respond appropriately to police and law enforcement officers; (4) choose courses of action to avoid potential legal problems, e.g., as tenants, learning to review a lease before signing; and (5) seek appropriate remedies for legal problems, e.g., writing effective letters of complaint.
Besides learning what the law is, students also learn to examine underlying policies and values to assess what the law should be. The students are encouraged to draw on their own knowledge and experience to assess laws and their underlying policies, rationales and values. For instance, when students examine a specific problem, they are asked to think about it in their own terms and then from other points of view. They determine and apply the appropriate law, determine available legal remedies, and discuss the often-competing policy concerns, societal interests and the underlying values on which these policies are based. As well as studying specific constitutional rights, students inquire as to whether such goals as fairness, due process, and justice are attained. Students also study how our legal system balances competing values that come into conflict. For instance, students examine how the First Amendment “freedom of speech” may be balanced against society’s interest in protecting itself from injurious, obscene or dangerous words.
The Street Law courses accomplish these objectives by using a variety of learner-centered methods, including role plays, simulations, large and small group discussions, lectures, case studies, news articles, video clips, guest participants, field trips, and simulations of legal proceedings. The centerpiece of the program is the annual mock trial. High school students play the roles of lawyers and witnesses in a hypothetical case brought before actual judges at the Superior Court. In addition to learning communications and preparation skills, trial procedures, and teamwork, students practice the spectrum of cognitive skills as they comprehend a complicated fact pattern, apply the facts to the law, analyze and evaluate factual and legal issues, and synthesize the many components into a unified presentation.
As they study the law, students develop basic academic skills such as reading, writing, listening, oral expression, problem-solving, and analytical thinking. Moreover, the objectives of the Street Law courses correlate with and complement the D.C. Schools’ history and government curricula. The Street Law students also participate in a number of extra-curricular programs. One highlight is the Teen Dating Violence Prevention program, conducted in collaboration with the D.C. Domestic Violence Coordinating Council, the D.C. Superior Court, and the Families and the Law Clinic of Catholic University Columbus School of Law.
Another feature of the course is the Mentor program, in which each Street Law class is paired with a law firm or legal organization. The Mentor firm typically is involved in Street Law during the mock trial tournament preparations in cooperation with the law student instructor. However, many mentors visit the Street Law class to teach about certain aspects of the law in which the firm is involved. Many firms take the students on a field trip to a law-related activity it is connected to, such as a visit to a Superior Court trial, a Congressional hearing, or to the U.S. Supreme Court. Often, the firms invite the Street Law class to a visit to the firm itself, where the students learn about the operations of a law firm, observe potential careers from legal secretary to lawyer, and perhaps examine the development of a case in some detail.
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Professor Richard L. Roe directs the Law Center’s D.C. Street Law Project clinic and specializes in educating the public about the law. Prior to joining the Law Center faculty in 1983, he served as Program Director of the National Institute for Citizen Education in the Law and Executive Director of the Coalition for Law Related Education in Washington, D.C. He has also conducted numerous workshops throughout the country on teaching about the law to the public. He is the co-author of the high school textbook, Great Trials in American History. He has reviewed upcoming arguments in Preview of Supreme Court Cases, written several articles for Update on Law Related Education, edited the ABA publication Putting on Mock Trials and is the author of Valuing Student Speech in the California Law Review. Professor Roe is the founder and Director of the D.C. Family Literacy Project, which teaches prisoners how to read with their children and other developmentally appropriate practices. His present research focuses on learning theory and its implications for law and law teaching.
Clinical Teaching Fellow Charisma X. Howell is the Clinical Fellow for the DC Street Law Clinic for 2006-2008. She assists with the instruction, observation and assessment of the participating law students as well as with clinic administration for special projects. Clinic seminar topics include criminal, torts, consumer, housing, family, and individual rights law. Further, Ms. Howell is responsible for writing the mock trial used in a citywide mock trial competition for high school students.
Ms. Howell attended Arizona State University achieving a BS in Management with an emphasis in Small Business and Entrepreneurship and obtained her law degree from California Western School of Law in San Diego, California.
During her law school career Ms. Howell amassed numerous academic and trial skills related awards. In 2005, Ms. Howell was a participant in the Institute for Criminal Defense Advocacy's Trial Skills Academy. Although the only student among 75 trial attorneys, Ms. Howell was named "Best Advocate." She won a not guilty verdict in her first criminal jury trial as a Post Bar Clerk for the San Diego County Public Defenders Office. Ms. Howell has worked for the Honorable Judge John A. Houston of the United States District Court, Southern District of California and also interned at the California Innocence project which seeks the release of wrongfully convicted prisoners in California.
While in law school, Ms. Howell assisted in the organization and facilitation of the Summer Law High Program and taught Street Law at an elementary school whose student body is comprised largely of homeless and "at-risk" students. Ms. Howell created and implemented law school pipeline programs aimed at sparking the interest of high school and middle school students in the legal profession. |
