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Housing Advocacy Clinic Continues to Innovate and Expand
THE HOUSING ADVOCACY CLINIC (HAC) HELPS students develop the skills necessary to be effective and conscientious tenant advocates and public interest lawyers. As part of the Camden-based Housing Justice Project, which also includes the Eviction Prevention Pro Bono Project, HAC students defend renters in eviction matters throughout South Jersey, with a focus on providing zealous and thoughtful representation to members of underresourced communities. Clinic students will also participate in knowledge-sharing events to more broadly serve the wider tenant community outside of the courtroom, create Know Your Rights materials, advocate for broader social change, and conduct equity impact analysis in the landlord-tenant arena. This fall, Caryn Schreiber joined the Housing Advocacy Clinic in Camden as a visiting assistant clinical professor. She brings to the clinic her extensive experience as a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society of New York City’s Civil Law Reform Unit and with the Brooklyn and East New York Neighborhood Offices.
Rutgers Law School’s Camden campus
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Caryn Schreiber, Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor, Housing Advocacy Clinic
INNOCENCE PROJECT
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of the Rutgers Center on Criminal Justice, Youth Rights, and Race. “We hope this helps us exonerate more wrongfully convicted people in a cooperative fashion than we otherwise would be able to.”
Ultimately, school and program leadership have a series of ambitious goals including, but not limited to, exonerating wrongful convictions. “I hope that we are able to ensure that any person who has been wrongfully convicted of a crime has access to effective, zealous, passionate representation in New Jersey,” says Cohen. “I hope that our work and what we learn about the causes, effects, and frequency of wrongful conviction will make its way into legislative and regulatory reforms in the state so we can start to prevent the tragedy of wrongful convictions in the first place.”
Project Leadership
Nyssa Taylor joined Rutgers Law School this fall as the managing attorney of NJIP. Immediately before coming on board, Nyssa served as the criminal justice strategic litigation and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, where she developed class-action lawsuits to defend civil liberties and tackle systemic injustice. She also wrote reports highlighting issues of statewide importance and provided public testimony before local and state legislative bodies.
REAL WORLD IMPACT
STUDENT RESEARCH LEADS TO NEW STATE LAW REMOVING MONETARY PENALTIES FOR JUVENILES IN COURT SYSTEM
Criminal and Youth Justice students researched and documented the devastating impact of monetary penalties imposed on children involved in the delinquency system. Together with Clinic faculty, they drafted legislation eliminating fines and fees imposed on children in Juvenile Court, rescinding all previously imposed monetary penalties, and vacating all outstanding warrants issued for unpaid fines and fees. After a successful advocacy campaign by the Clinic and its community partners, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed the bill into law in January 2022. New Jersey now stands as a model for other states in the national fight for economic justice for youth.
REAL WORLD IMPACT
Rutgers Law School (RLS) is a pioneer and national model in clinical education. RLS boasts 18 clinics across its two New Jersey campuses in Newark and Camden where students represent real clients under the supervision of Rutgers Law faculty. Students in the clinical education programs learn lawyering skills and development of professional identity, working with clients on numerous issues. In addition, our clinical faculty have influenced the development of law, conducted applied research and launched interdisciplinary projects with significant impact, and have had published scholarship cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and other high courts. These are just a few examples of Rutgers Law School’s Real World Impact.
The Intellectual Property Law Clinic, which provides a wide range of intellectual property and entertainment law related services, has obtained a national and international reputation, as represented by both the client roster and significant number of requests for assistance from throughout the USA and internationally. The Clinic is also one of the initial clinics in the USPTO Law School Clinic Program, and has filed more trademark applications with the USPTO than any other law school in the program
CLINIC GETS STATE LAW PASSED EXTENDING SPECIAL EDUCATION STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS
The Education and Health Law Clinic drafted, negotiated, and succeeded in getting New Jersey legislation passed to extend the special education statute of limitations for COVID-19 related compensatory education claims for students with disabilities. The legislation is the first of its kind in the nation. (Coverage in StarLedger)
The Domestic Violence Clinic, started in 2016, offers New Jersey’s first dedicated program for people seeking restraining orders pursuant to the Sexual Assault Survivor Protection Act.
During a briefing conference before the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, Veterans Advocacy Clinic students successfully argued that the U.S. Veterans Affairs violated its “duty to assist” a client in his over 40-year-long quest to obtain VA benefits.
STUDENTS GET SUPPORT EXTENDED FOR ADULT AGING OUT OF FOSTER CARE
Child & Family Advocacy Clinic students represented a young adult who turned 21 in October 2021, shortly after the expiration of pandemic-relief funding that allowed child welfare agencies to extend support to youth in foster care beyond their twentyfirst birthdays. The Clinic filed a motion to retain jurisdiction and extend litigant’s rights, which led to successful negotiations to extend services and the stipend thru August 31, 2022. That motion and letter brief was shared statewide by the Office of the Law Guardian to help other attorneys advocate for their aging out clients.
APPEAL IN THIRD CIRCUIT COURT ALLEGING INEFFECTIVE COUNSEL ASSISTANCE IN ATF CASE
In United States v. Whitfield, the Constitutional Rights Clinic represented a federal habeas petitioner in an appeal alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. The petitioner was convicted of federal crimes in connection with a reverse sting by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives [ATF] involving a fake drug stash house. He alleges that his attorney’s post-trial motion for discovery regarding racially selective enforcement by the ATF prejudiced him, as a timely motion before trial might have led to evidence that required dismissal of his indictment. Constitutional Rights Clinic student Saumya Vaishampayan ‘22 argued before a panel of the Third Circuit in June 2022. Although the panel denied the appeal later in the summer, the panel thanked Vaishampayan for her “excellent . . . pro bono representation of Mr. Whitfield in this matter.”
CLINIC NEWS
Published by the Rutgers Law School Live-Client Clinical Program
RUTGERS LAW SCHOOL–NEWARK CLINICAL PROGRAM
S.I. Newhouse Center for Law and Justice 123 Washington Street, 4th Floor, Newark, NJ 07102 | (973) 353-3000 | law.newark.rutgers.edu/clinics
NEWARK CLINICAL FACULTY AND STAFF
Associate Dean for Clinical Education
Anjum Gupta
Deputy Director of Clinical Programs
Randi Mandelbaum
Child Advocacy Clinic
Randi Mandelbaum, Director Ashley Cruz, Staff Attorney, DCF/Immigration Project Cosette Douglas, Senior Staff Attorney, DCF/Immigration Project Meredith Gudesblatt, Immigration Paralegal, DCF/Immigration Project Ariela Herzog, Supervising Attorney, DCF/Immigration Project
Community and Transactional Lawyering Clinic
Robert C. Holmes, Director Charles I. Auffant
Constitutional Rights Clinic
Alexis Karteron, Director Ronald K. Chen
Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic
Laura Cohen, Director Tyler Dougherty, Pratt Fellow and Staff Attorney Elana Wilf, Staff Attorney Nyssa Taylor, Managing Attorney, Innocence Project (Newark and Camden)
Economic Justice and Public Benefits Clinic
Jon Dubin, Director
Education and Health Law Clinic
Esther Canty-Barnes, Director Jennifer Rosen Valverde
Entrepreneurship Clinic
Douglas Eakeley, Director Theodore Weitz, Adjunct Professor
Federal Tax Law Clinic
Sandy Freund, Director
RUTGERS LAW SCHOOL–CAMDEN CLINICAL PROGRAM
217 North Fifth Street, Camden, NJ 08102 | (856) 225-6375 | camlaw.rutgers.edu/clinics
CAMDEN CLINICAL FACULTY AND STAFF
Director of Clinical Programs
Joanne Gottesman
Child and Family Advocacy Clinic
Meredith L. Schalick, Director
Domestic Violence Clinic
Victoria Chase, Director Ruth Anne Robbins
Entrepreneurship Clinic
Arthur Laby, Director Tara Pellicori, Adjunct Professor
Expungement Clinic
Meredith Schalick, Director Housing Advocacy Clinic
Anne Mallgrave, Director Caryn Schreiber, Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor Ashley Maddison, Staff Attorney Taylor De La Pena, Program Coordinator
Immigrant Justice Clinic
Joanne Gottesman, Director Elizabeth Yaeger, Senior Staff Attorney, DCF/Immigration Project
Housing Justice and Tenants’ Solidarity Clinic
Greg Baltz, Visiting Assistant Professor and Director
Immigrant Rights Clinic
Anjum Gupta, Director Leena Khandwala, Managing Attorney, DDDI Pina Cirillo, Supervising Attorney, DDDI Kunal Sharma, Supervising Attorney, DDDI Irma Calderon, Detention Fellow, DDDI Shayna Scott, Detention Fellow, DDDI Sylvia Santos, Paralegal, DDDI
Intellectual Property Clinic
John R. Kettle III, Director
International Human Rights Clinic
Penny Venetis, Director
Rutgers Immigrant Community Assistance Project
Jason Hernandez, Staff Attorney
Assistant Director for Clinical Administration
Christopher J. Phillips Administrative Staff
Melissa Jordan Diane Martinez Kaiwan Perez
Innocence Project
Nyssa Taylor, Managing Attorney (Camden & Newark) Rutgers Immigrant Community Assistance Project
Jason Hernandez, Staff Attorney Mary Hewey, Program Coordinator
Veterans Advocacy Clinic
Traci Overton, Director
Assistant Director for Clinical Administration
Angelica Latorre Aguirre
Administrative Staff
Lidia Catoe
DUBIN Q&A
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and whatever roles I’ve played in trying to help create a diverse, inclusive, and supportive environment for their work and the program’s progress over the past 20 years.
What do you believe are the biggest challenges that lie ahead for clinical legal education?
Before March 2020, I would have identified the still lingering effects of the legal economy’s recession and the resulting economic contractions at (and mergers of) several law schools, along with greater consumer (and bar and bench) demand for law schools to provide marketable skills to graduates for survival in a smaller, less robust legal economy. These phenomena produced pressure for more experiential and clinical education, but at lower costs to law schools. This, in turn, presented many pedagogical and institutional challenges to existing clinical programs and clinical faculty, including incentives to replicate past, often inequitable hierarchies with low-cost, non-faculty teaching fellows, staff attorneys, and adjunct teachers.
While these pressures persist, I think the pandemic added new twists due to the use and acceptance of virtual teaching methodologies, which were a pandemic necessity but are likely to continue in some form. I suspect there will be pressure from many sources to avoid returning fully to in-person, pre-pandemic instruction. While greater use of online instruction and distance learning/teaching may be a positive development for legal education as a whole in many ways, I think it presents unique challenges for clinical education that is grounded in interpersonal skills development and instruction, client interaction and communication, and ground level community engagement, where much can be lost through distance.
Online clinical teaching and lawyering also presents additional challenges, stemming from the digital divide and the absence of access to technology in the low-income populations which historically comprise the client base for most of our clinical programs.
Finally, I think clinical programs, and legal education more broadly, will be challenged to teach around and confront the social justice crises of the times—at the moment, (in my opinion) from increasingly antidemocratic/autocratic, white supremacist, and women’s reproductive-freedom-denying/ health-imperiling currents and movements in our broader society, and from the existential burdens of climate change and imperatives of climate justice.
As you know, Professor Anju Gupta is succeeding you as Associate Dean for Clinical Education, and when Professor Robert Holmes steps down in January 2023, Professor Randi Mandelbaum will succeed him as Deputy Director of the Clinical Program in Newark. This marks the first change in leadership since you assumed the role 20 years ago. What are your hopes for the future of the clinical program at Rutgers?
I hope the program will continue to evolve and grow in the fluid institutional context of the relatively recent law school merger with Rutgers–Camden, and address issues of cross-campus program coordination and collaboration consistent with clinical program prerogatives in each location.
More broadly, I hope and fully expect that the program will continue to flourish in addressing the educational, public service, social justice, and related scholarly challenges of the times—likely in ways I can’t even yet fathom. Just as my seniors Frank, Nadine, and Jon had the confidence to look to me more than 20 years ago without many suggestions or stated imperatives beyond program unification, I too have complete confidence in my successors— Anju Gupta and Randi Mandelbaum—in figuring out where we need to be and in what new ways we need to confront the daunting upcoming challenges of the times.
What’s next for you?
I hope to return to where I was from 1999 to 2002 (albeit as an elder now): to the mix of clinical and classroom teaching, scholarship, and public and community service, without the diversion of a substantial portion of my energy, time, and focus to administration.
I look forward to evolving the Economic Justice and Public Benefits Clinic, which I will be directing when I return from a year sabbatical, towards a broader subject matter focus beyond social security and social welfare benefits work, such as inequitable civil fines and fees, and financial obstacles to access to justice. And, I have turned my scholarly focus for the immediate future towards the intersection of racial justice and equity in social security programs.
Finally, I hope to be a source of institutional clinical program information, memory, and guidance for Anju and Randi (when they seek it) much in the way Jon and Frank were for me over many years.
