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In the Street Law High Schools Clinic, established in 1972, 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 2010-2011 year, 17 classes are being taught in 12 District of Columbia public senior high schools. 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 Street Law high school course covers negotiations, criminal law and procedure, individual rights, torts, family law, consumer law and housing law. The highlight of the class 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 before D.C. Superior Court judges and other legal community members 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, March 31st and Monday, April 4th. The mock trial championship will be held on Thursday, April 7th on the GULC campus. We encourage clinic applicants to attend and to score a mock trial at the Superior Court on March 31st and/or April 4th, or to attend the championship round on April 7th. Please contact the clinic office (662-9615) or contact Teaching Fellow Sarah Medway to register to be a scorer or use our online registration page on the Street Law website (http://www.law.georgetown.edu/forms/form.cfm?FormID=199).
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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 participate effectively within 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, and small claims court complaint forms; (3) respond appropriately to police and law enforcement officers; (4) choose appropriate courses of action to avoid potential legal problems; 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 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 through such rights. 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, In which 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 communication and preparation skills, trial procedures, and teamwork, students practice the spectrum of cognitive skills as they study a complicated fact pattern, apply the law to the facts, analyze and evaluate factual and legal issues, and synthesize these many components into a unified mock trial 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 high school students also participate in a number of extra-curricular programs, including Workplace Street Law, conducted in collaboration with the D.C. Bar Labor and Employment Section.
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 is involved in Street Law during the mock trial tournament preparations in cooperation with the law student instructor. Additionally, some mentor firms take the high school students on a law-related field trip, 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 taught prisoners and homeless parents how to read with their children and other developmentally appropriate practices. He and a group law students created the Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School, acknowledged as one of the best charter schools in the nation, as one of the first GULC student initiated seminars. His present research focuses on learning theory and its implications for law and law teaching.
Teaching Fellow Sarah Medway graduated with honors from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004 with a B.A. in Government, and she received a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 2008. During law school, Sarah participated in the Georgetown Street Law Clinic, taught legal research and writing at the Costa Rican Bar Association, and volunteered with the Legal Counsel for the Elderly. After graduation, Sarah practiced at the law firm Seyfarth Shaw in New York, where she specialized in employment litigation. Following this, she worked in Kenya as the Country Director for Flying Kites, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising the standards of care for orphaned and vulnerable children.
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