BU Law to Offer Access to Justice and Compliance Policy Clinics
The new clinics will offer law students experiential learning opportunities through a combination of fieldwork and coursework.
Boston University School of Law will add two new clinics to its experiential program: The Compliance Policy Clinic and the Access to Justice Clinic, which will be part of the Civil Litigation Program (soon to be known as the Civil Litigation & Justice Program).
Available beginning in the fall semester, the Access to Justice Clinic is a full-year clinic that will provide free legal representation to Boston residents living in poverty in housing, domestic violence, employment law, and disability cases. Students will learn about—and work to expose—the systemic barriers to accessing the justice system including race, gender, disability, class, culture, and language.
Clinical Associate Professor Naomi Mann will supervise clinic students as they spend the first semester representing their clients in civil matters. In the second semester, Mann will guide students through projects that tackle the systemic barriers their clients face. “We have a lot of students who are interested in learning how to change the world through the legal system,” Mann says. “These students will play their part by understanding client narratives and experiences in the context of these barriers in order to advocate for their clients.”
Launching in spring 2020, the Compliance Policy Clinic is one of the first in the country for law students to earn hands-on experience helping business, governmental, and nonprofit organizations navigate issues of ethics and compliance. This one-semester clinic will allow students to collaborate with public and private sector partners across a range of industries. Students will hone their research, analytical, drafting, writing, presentation, and counseling skills while focusing on legal and regulatory issues concerning risk management, enforcement, and internal monitoring and auditing.
The Compliance Policy Clinic will complement the school’s Risk Management & Compliance concentration, in which JD students learn the core legal concepts underlying compliance and their impact on business operations and can opt to specialize in corporate compliance, cyberlaw and security, financial services regulations, or compliance issues in healthcare and biotechnology.
“The clinic will give students the opportunity to learn about this field by addressing actual compliance issues,” says Professor Peggy Maisel, the outgoing associate dean for experiential education. “It will prepare them for this emerging practice area.”
The two new clinical programs add to the extensive list of experiential learning opportunities offered by BU Law for students to apply their coursework in the field. For more information about the clinics, externships, and simulation courses offered, please visit our website.
Reported by Shea Robinson (COM’21)
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