Child Advocacy Law Clinic 

The Child Advocacy Law Clinic seeks to introduce students to their new lawyer identity, the substantive and skill demands of this new role, and the institutional framework within which lawyers operate. The Clinic especially focuses on the relationship between the lawyer and other professionals facing the same social problem. Building on the field experience of actual case handling as a basis for analysis, it seeks to make students more self-critical and reflective about various lawyering functions they must undertake. Students are asked to integrate legal theory with real human crises in the cases they handle. Students will develop habits of thought and standards of performance and learn how to learn from raw experience for their future professional growth. Students must enroll for the 4-credit clinic and the 3-credit seminar, taken concurrently.

In the Child Advocacy Law Clinic (CALC) our students don't just learn about law, they learn to be lawyers. Students are in control of their cases, under supervision, and complete all the steps required to take a case to court, just as they will when they begin practicing after law school. The clinic provides an in-depth, interdisciplinary experience working with problems of child abuse and neglect and of children in foster care. Students taking this clinic represent children, parents, or local county offices of the Department of Human Services in court cases that may be located in Washtenaw, Genesee, Wayne, Jackson, Livingston or Monroe counties.  Each student team has a mix of child welfare cases representing each of the three major roles, so they get to see and understand the lawyer role from different vantage points and with different concerns and interests.

Watch this video to see CALC students at work and hear how the clinic helped a single mother.

Students work in partnerships and find that they have the true lead on their cases. Three clinical law faculty who are specialist in child advocacy law, supervise up to eight students each and act as advisers, but clinic students make the decisions about their cases. Some law students are drawn to the clinic because of their interest in child welfare law or public interest lawyering.  Others are particularly attracted to the intense litigation experience where nearly students end up in court quite often and each student team handles at least one full trial, usually seeking termination of parental rights on behalf of the county agency.

With such responsibility, students are thoroughly prepared for each aspect of representing their clients, for their court experience, and for working in the field of child advocacy. The CALC program begins with a series of classes to prepare students for what will happen in court. (See the course syllabus.) Class sessions cover child welfare and procedure; preliminary hearing simulations; learning to interview clients, especially children; dealing with evidence; case and trial preparation, including direct and cross examination; and mock trial practices. The law students also address the complex legal, social, emotional, ethical, and public policy questions of when and how the state ought to intervene in family life on behalf of children. 

Cases and teams are assigned in the third week of class. From this point through the end of the semester, teams participate in case conferences. Besides the student attorneys, the conferences include the faculty supervisors for each case, and a psychologist and a psychology student intern, who provide guidance. Depending on the needs of the case, students might also work with professionals, faculty or student colleagues from social work, pediatrics, and psychiatry.  In addition to clinical psychology, CALC regularly has participating students from other disciplines, including social work graduate students, pediatric residents, public policy graduate students and journalism fellows.

How to Enroll in CALC
You must be a 2L or 3L to enroll in the Child Advocacy Law Clinic.  The clinics have an application process that begins prior to the new term registration.  All law students who have finished their first year of law school will receive an email from the Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs' office giving instructions on the process of applying for a clinic and included in that email is the application as an attachment.  The application asks for a statement of interest. CALC Professors will then review these applications and choose who will be allowed to enroll in the Clinic for that term.