Part I: Procedures Governing Advisor-Student Relationships

    This Part of the CALS Case Team Method describes procedures governing the working relationships between the students and the advisor(s) in the team. It also explains why advisors suggest each of the proposed relationships. As is more fully described in the prefatory description, the advisors are willing to discuss suggested changes to these procedures at any time.

1. Prior to each case team meeting, the students will discuss thoroughly with each other the issues they expect will arise in the meeting and, if decisions have to be made, the students will make at least tentative decisions before the meeting.

    This procedure requires students to be prepared for each meeting and, by insisting that students canvass options and reject inferior ones, empowers them to make effective decisions. Case team meetings will be more valuable to students if discussions of issues begin by focussing on particular action plans, whether or not those plans are modified as a result of the meetings.

2. Students will develop and execute a written agenda for each case team meeting, although the advisor(s) may propose additions to it when the meeting begins. The agenda will describe, at least briefly, each of the issues to be addressed, and copies will be distributed to the advisors no later than the beginning of each case team meeting.

    In the advisors' experience, most groups meeting to work on complex legal projects are more effective if they plan an agenda carefully. A formal agenda also helps a group to complete its work within any applicable time limits. In addition, a written agenda allows all members to understand what has to be accomplished so that time is appropriately allocated to each item. Students rather than advisors should prepare the agenda, because they will best know what issues (regarding both cases and other matters, such as interpersonal relationships or questions arising in class) need to be addressed in a meeting. The advisors have found that for most teams, fairly detailed agendas specifying particular issues (as opposed to agendas saying "Case One" and "Case Two") are most likely to produce meetings in which most, if not all, student concerns may be addressed.

    If this procedure doesn't seem to work well, some variants that some students might want to consider proposing include: providing more or less detailed agendas; giving advisors the agenda a day before the meeting so that advisors can better prepare for the meeting; providing agendas only orally; requiring time segments to be assigned to each agenda item in writing, etc.

3. At its first meeting, the case team will schedule a regular meeting to take place, for one hour, during each subsequent week. When they believe it is necessary, students may propose an additional, "specially convened" case team meeting.

    Over the years, most case teams have met for an hour a week, with one or two special or extended meetings during crunch or crisis periods. The advisors are not wedded to that schedule, but more frequent meetings tend to reduce students' independence, and longer ones seem to be less efficient, covering the same ground in more time. Advisors have tried shorter meetings with some teams, but once the cases start going at full steam, an hour seems necessary.

4. All members of the case team should be present at all case team meetings, unless other arrangements are agreed upon in advance, or an unforeseen event precludes the attendance of a member. In the event that a meeting is held without all members, it should be tape recorded for the absentee.

    At case team meetings, something is likely to happen that will affect the future of one or both cases. The attendance of each member is important so that a member doesn't get left out of a critical process of evaluating students' decisions or helping students to modify the direction they are taking. If a member can anticipate a necessary absence (e.g., for an out-of-town job interview), he or she should discuss it in advance so that the group can consider whether to reschedule the meeting or adopt some other plan. The procedure provides that a meeting can go forward without a member in the unusual case of a sudden, unforeseen absence (e.g., a member is stuck in a Metro shutdown).

5. The advisor(s) will not make decisions for students or tell them what to do on their cases, except in a rare instance of imminent error that would seriously damage a client.

    This is the "student control with safety net" procedure discussed in the prefatory remarks in this Chapter. In the advisors' view, it maximizes student learning by giving students control over their cases. The advisors will ask many questions to help students evaluate their planning and the execution of their plans, and if asked they will give their own opinions, but they will almost never divest students of the power to make final decisions.

6. Before and during case team meetings, students will give explicit consideration to which questions of law, procedure, and strategy they want their advisor(s) to try to answer informally, and which questions they want to research independently.

    Asking questions is often a good way to do research on legal and strategic issues. Research through personal conversations, electronic mail, and telephone calls can often avoid long and inefficient searches of books and databases. We encourage students to pose questions often, to advisors as well as to each other and to people with knowledge or expertise outside of CALS. When we are asked questions, we will answer them to the best of our ability -- which is often a very limited ability, because case-related questions frequently require more particularized information than we possess. At the same time, all conversation-based research can be hazardous. Apparent authorities provide a surprisingly high proportion of erroneous information, or information as to which other authorities disagree. In addition, asking for information from some authorities (e.g., public officials) may prematurely lock those authorities into positions that turn out to be adverse to CALS clients. Posing questions to CALS advisors may present both of those risks to some degree, but it may also present a different kind of hazard as well: pre-empting student opportunities to sharpen research skills by using other types of sources. For these reasons, we encourage students to feel free to ask us questions but to be conscious of possibly superior methods of obtaining information.

7. Significant case or case team issues that students wish to discuss with the advisor(s) may be discussed only during regularly scheduled or specially convened case team meetings. Any other issues may be discussed with the advisor(s) outside of such meetings. (Significant case or case-team issues involve decisions materially affecting the direction or outcome of a case, or the direction of the work of the case team or of the student partnership).

    This provision attempts to draw a line (although there are of course borderline situations) between the occasions when it is productive for one or both students to make casual inquiries of an advisor (e.g., by dropping by the advisor's office) and those on which casual discussions, without all members being present, might do more harm than good. The idea is that to the extent that advisors are used as relatively ministerial resources (e.g., "do you know of a good book about the human rights situation in Honduras?" or "what time does the clerk's office at the Immigration Court close?"), little harm is likely to arise from casual questioning (although even here, a student who wanted to learn how to find resources might elect to work on the problem independently) rather than waiting for the next case team meeting. On the other hand, with rare exceptions, all case team members should ordinarily be present for discussions of strategy or most interpersonal problems; again, the purpose of this procedure is to avoid leaving one member of the team out of the decision-making process. If there is a genuinely urgent need to have a "special" case team meeting between two regularly scheduled ones, the advisors will try to be accommodating, but they may be unavailable on short notice, and they sometimes disagree with students about the urgency of the need.

8. When appropriate, time will be spent in case team meetings on how the team is working together and how the members feel about the work. Team members will try to help each other to become more aware of how feelings relate to practicing law.

    The presence of this procedure confirms that each member of the team is willing to talk during meetings about interpersonal relationships and about feelings, as they relate to the team's work. The procedure helps to remind us of these issues, which are easy to overlook in the heat of litigation.

9. The last five minutes of each case team meeting will be devoted to an evaluation of the meeting, led by the student members.

    This procedure was suggested years ago by students who found that future case team meetings often were more useful if each meeting was evaluated before it ended, with effective modes of work or problems explicitly noted. In the advisors' experience, frank evaluations also help to prevent problems from continuing to the point where they become much greater in magnitude and more difficult to resolve.

10. The advisor(s) and students will balance the occasionally conflicting needs for confidentiality and sharing as follows:

(a) Case matters. All members of the case team are encouraged to share case information freely with other members of the Clinic. Outside of the Clinic, the members of the case team may discuss the general subject matter of the cases, but will not reveal to anyone, including other clinic clients, information from which their clients' identities could be deduced.

(b) Interpersonal matters. Unless agreed otherwise, students may discuss the nature and content of case team meetings with anyone. Advisor(s) may only discuss these matters with other advisors and the office manager.

11. At the last case team meeting, there will be a substantial evaluation of the work of the case team. This discussion will begin with self-evaluation by the student members.

     The purpose of this procedure is to provide an occasion, at the end of the work of the case team, for summing up and evaluation. Team members may evaluate what they learned, how their values and skills changed, and how well they applied their skills to preparation, execution, and evaluation of their case work. They may also evaluate the effectiveness of their advisors and of CALS as a teaching institution. Since they set the agenda for this meeting, they can decide to what extent, if any, they want the advisors to participate in evaluating them.

Part II: Substantive Standards for Case Handling

    This Part describes CALS' minimum requirements with respect to case handling and specifies students' and advisors' obligations. Unlike Part I, this set of procedures is one that advisors regard as both mandatory and relatively non-negotiable in that it incorporates the standards and procedures that advisors think enable them to advise students adequately and to protect the clinic's clients. But the advisors use the words "relatively non-negotiable" only to distinguish their views with respect to this Part from their views with respect to Part I; students are certainly welcome to raise any issue with advisors and to try to persuade them to change their minds.

1. Case load. Each student partnership will handle, during the semester, at least one substantial case.

    A "substantial" case is one involving client interviews, strategic planning, legal research, fact investigation, and an oral appearance. We know that cases occasionally "wash out"; (e.g., the client repeatedly fails to appear for an initial interview or leaves the country). If this happens, the advisors will assign a replacement case (and another replacement, if necessary) until the partnership has a substantial case or it is too late in the term to take in a new case.

2. Case completion. Cases are assigned by advisors. (Very rarely, if a conflict of interest arises, or for other good cause, advisors may permit students to transfer a case to other students who do not yet have full case loads). Students will be responsible for making and executing all decisions relating to the case. In addition, by the last CALS class, they will be expected to take all actions necessary either to close a case or to get it to a stage that is appropriate for transfer. Students will represent the client until the conclusion of the semester or the case, whichever occurs first, unless some unforeseen circumstance necessitates early withdrawal. Every effort should be made to complete all cases by the day of the last CALS class, but if the students' work has not been completed by then, or a hearing is scheduled after the last class, advisors may require students to continue representation through or beyond the examination period.

3. File maintenance. Students will keep files orderly and constantly up-to-date in accordance with the guidelines stated in the Chapter of this Manual on Case Files and the memorandum included in each case file. All work done on a case must be documented. Everything should be typed or word processed. The Office Manager will supply students with an electronic file for maintaining Journals of Action in a particularly orderly and readable way.

4. Required steps. Students will proceed expeditiously in all cases as soon as they are assigned. In working on cases, some steps are required by CALS and others are optional or open to your own creativity and ingenuity. The required steps and deadlines are specified in the CALS Practice Section of the Asylum Law Manual and in the chart of deadlines in the Assignment Manual. They include:

(a) Preparing to interview a client, and conducting the interview, within a very short time after the case is assigned (as specified in the Assignment Manual), unless that proves impossible for reasons beyond the students' control.

(b) Writing a case plan, including a detailed calendar showing deadlines for all anticipated future work on the case, and submitting this document to the advisor(s) within the time limits specified in the Assignment Manual. Thereafter, the students will revise and update the case plan and calendar whenever warranted as a result of new research or significant developments in the case. In a deportation case, the final iteration of the case plan will be a hearing plan, as described in the Asylum Law Manual.

(c) Meeting CALS' filing deadline for any initial asylum application, as specified in the Assignment Manual;

(d) Researching fully the facts and law of a case taking actions that preclude alternative courses of action;

(e) Holding a mock hearing or Asylum Officer interview (moot) before the actual hearing or interview in a case;

(f) In a deportation case, drafting a short brief;

(g) Keeping the client fully apprised of developments in the case;

(h) Submitting to advisors, within the time frame specified in the Asylum Law Manual, proposed final copies of any documents that will be sent to any office or court of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; and

(i) Complying with the requirements in the Office Manual regarding Administrative Matters and Case Closeout Procedures.

(a) Attend the students' initial interview with each client or listen to or view a recording of that interview;

(b) Periodically review the case file;

(c) Ensure that at least one of them is present as an observer at all hearings or other formal proceedings;

(d) Read and review any briefs, proposed exhibits, motions, and any other documents prior to their formal use by the students;

(e) Offer feedback to students on all oral and written work;

(f) Assist in mooting each case at least once prior to hearings or Asylum Officer interviews;

(g) Undertake such additional action as may be mutually agreed in the course of case team meetings.

6. Court rules and ethical requirements. Students will comply with the Rules of Professional Conduct and the law student practice and other rules of any tribunals in which they appear.