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Nov 10, 2024
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LAW 5812 - Housing Rights Clinic
In this program students handle a wide variety of housing cases for low-income clients, such as defenses of eviction cases, actions by tenants against landlords challenging substandard conditions in their apartments, fair housing and exclusionary zoning cases, public utility shut-off cases, and work on behalf of community groups for housing rehabilitation. Each student has a caseload of two or three smaller cases and one complex case. Students prepare and present their cases in state and federal courts.
The course develops lawyering skills with special emphasis on litigation strategy, pretrial and trial preparation, and trial advocacy. In their representation of clients in actual cases, students have the opportunity to engage in interviewing and counseling, negotiation, fact investigation and discovery, oral advocacy, direct and cross-examination, and trial argument. Students also draft research memoranda, strategy memoranda, pleadings, motions and trial briefs. Special attention is placed on professional responsibility issues and strategic caseplanning methods.
Throughout the course a combination of teaching methods is employed, including classroom instruction, individual case supervision, simulations and videotaped exercises. In the two-hour weekly seminar, topics include substantive housing law, case planning methods, and the progress of actual clinic cases. Students also perform simulated exercises (some of which are videotaped) related to their actual cases. The primary mode of instruction is one-on-one case supervision. Evidence and Trial Techniques are strongly recommended.
Credits: 6
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