Poverty Studies The Law School has partnered with the undergraduate’s Shepherd Program on Poverty and Human Capability to identify law courses, clinics, externships and third-year practicum courses that address poverty and justice from a variety of perspectives.
Law Center in Richmond, the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment in Lewisburg, W.Va., and the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville, as well as with legal aid and public defender offices in the area. Law students can fulfill their third-year service requirement
“We believe educating students about poverty and the role of law in perpetuating or alleviating it will help them be better leaders, wherever their legal career takes them.”
–Professor Joan Shaughnessy
A new law student organization, the Shepherd Poverty Law Organization, will promote these opportunities to students and represents student interests in this area to the Law School and the University. Professor Joan Shaughnessy led the effort on behalf of the Law School. “We believe educating students about poverty and the role of law in perpetuating or alleviating it will help them be better leaders, wherever their legal career takes them,” she said. Among the courses students can take is the Poverty Seminar, taught by Harlan Beckley, Fletcher Otey Professor of Religion, lecturer in religion and law and director of the Shepherd Program. Other courses include bankruptcy, immigration law and policy, and non-profit organizations, as well as participation in one of the school’s many clinics that serve low-income clients. Internships also exist. This past summer law students worked at the Georgia Justice Project in Atlanta, the Chester Upland School District Youth Court in Chester, Pa., the Virginia Poverty
through work in local domestic violence shelters, through advocacy for abused and neglected children or as court-appointed special advocates. “These kinds of experiences allow law students to discover how their work as a professional and civic leader can have a positive impact in diminishing poverty,” said Beckley. “Such personal and professional development is only possible at a law school like W&L, where students work in close collaboration with faculty members who understand and support each student’s individual aspirations.” To learn more, visit law.wlu.edu/ poverty law.
Immigration Services Launched last year, the Citizenship and Immigration Program (CIP) at W&L focuses on resolving legal disputes related to immigration and naturalization. Students working in the program represent individuals before the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Justice in order to
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New Programs obtain immigration benefits such as permanent residence, citizenship, asylum and relief from deportation. “Immigrants in general have particular difficulty in accessing legal representation,” says Aaron Haas, director of the program. “Language barriers, the inability to afford private attorneys, lack of legal understanding and sophistication, and distrust of the legal system generally, all contribute to this problem. This is even a greater issue in south and central Virginia, where there remains a lack of private immigration attorneys and non-profit organizations willing and able to serve the immigrant population.” During the first year, 11 students participated in the program, part of the School’s general externship program and third-year curriculum. In all, students handled 25 immigration cases, including requests for asylum, special juvenile cases and deportation proceedings. This included representation in an appeal before the Board of Immigration Appeals, a body that hears oral argument in roughly 25 cases a year out of the thousands that are filed. “Our clients primarily come from Central America, and the cases are typically asylum claims related to child abuse or politically motivated gang violence,” said Haas. Students also served clients from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Canada, Bosnia, the Czech Republic, the Philippines and Egypt. To build the program, Haas reached out to churches, shelters, non-profit agencies and the private bar in order to develop a varied caseload. In addition to the asylum cases, students handled five special immigrant-juvenile cases and argued them in Roanoke, Lynchburg and Richmond. Students also worked on five cases involving domestic abuse victims applying for permanent residency. Winter
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