Thinking about immigration law today

Exciting developments are happening in the Willamette Law Immigration Clinic!

The Immigration Clinic provides second and third-year law students the ability to represent non-citizen clients who are facing removal. Students who are enrolled in the clinic gain important transferable lawyering skills such as client counseling, drafting pleadings, case management, legal research and analysis, and applying what they learn in the classroom to assist vulnerable community members.

Students act as the primary attorney, under faculty supervision, in assisting clients with applications for humanitarian relief, including for individuals seeking asylum, domestic violence survivors, victims of crimes, and children who have been abused, abandoned or neglected.

Clinical education is incredibly sought after by law students. When Professor Beth Zilberman relaunched the Immigration Clinic in 2022, Willamette Law became the only law school in the state with an immigration clinic. This change marked the return of a critical program providing important training for students, as well as necessary legal services to underserved populations. Since its relaunch, applications to enroll in the Immigration Clinic have increased each semester.

In 2023, Professor Sarah Purce joined the Immigration Clinic faculty to implement the Portland Immigration Initiative (PII) and increase capacity of the immigration curriculum. Purce is spearheading the expansion of Willamette Law’s Portland presence, including partnerships with the Immigration Bar.

As part of the PII, Purce recently launched the Immigrant Justice Scholars Program, which has already admitted its first cohort of scholars to begin in the fall of 2024.