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PLACE BASED EDUCATION, SERVICE-LEARNING, SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES
EXEMPLARS from Community Works Institute |
Including Undergraduate Students in Service-Learning Legal Clinics
by Kiren Dosanjh Zucker and Bruce Zucker
Kiren Dosanjh Zucker is Associate Professor, College of Business and Economics, California State University Northridge. J.D., University of Michigan (1989). Professor Dosanjh Zucker taught Business Law 490 CS: Community Service Legal Clinic at California State University, Northridge in the Fall 2002 semester. She has been appointed by the Los Angeles County Juvenile Dependency Court to represent pro bono juvenile dependents seeking to enforce their educational rights. She is the Director of Faculty Development at California State University, Northridge.
Bruce Zucker is Associate Professor, College of Business and Economics, California State University, Northridge. J.D., Loyola Law School, Los Angeles (1993). Professor Zucker is the former Director of the CSUN Tenant Legal Clinic and taught Business Law 490 CS: Community Service Legal Clinic. He is a former staff attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles in its Eviction Defense Center. The State Bar of California awarded Professor Zucker its 2002 President’s Pro Bono Service Award for his contributions in creating and directing the CSUN Tenant Legal Clinic.
Abstract
After briefly reviewing the concurrent trends of service learning in undergraduate programs and the decrease in indigent legal services, this article discusses the creation and implementation of a legal clinic staffed exclusively by undergraduate students: The former Tenant Legal Clinic at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). This paper examines the feasibility of using undergraduates in legal services clinics and the place for such service in college curriculum.
I. Introduction
Although law school clinics may be viewed as a relatively recent phenomenon,[1] the clinical approach to legal education has its historical roots in the apprenticeship system under which the first United States lawyers were trained.[2] Today’s law school clinics not only provide an opportunity for future lawyers to learn their trade,[3] but also offer needed access to justice to indigent clients through their free or low-cost legal services.[4] In some communities, law school clinics have helped to mitigate the effects of reductions in federal funding to traditional providers of indigent legal services.[5]
As access to justice through traditional indigent legal service narrows, an educational trend expands on college campuses: the creation of “service-learning” opportunities for undergraduates.[6] “Service-learning” describes programs which promote learning through action and reflection: students serve a community need, and then connect their service to academic learning objectives.[7] These two trends convened to create and support a unique learning opportunity for undergraduate students at California State University Northridge (CSUN).
The CSUN Tenant Legal Clinic (“the Clinic”) served indigent tenants in the San Fernando Valley.[8] The Clinic offered to students interested in attending law school the opportunity to explore landlord-tenant legal issues while serving the needs of low-income tenants in their community. In Spring 2001, the Clinic partnered with the Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLS), which had recently opened one of the first Self Help Centers in the United States.[9] Through readings, observation, and reflection, these students also gained insight into current issues relating to access to justice.
This article describes the creation and implementation of what appears to be one of the first university-sponsored undergraduate legal services clinics in the United States. The article also discusses the feasibility of using undergraduate university students in community legal services clinics.[10] Further, the article suggests the types of cases and areas of law that these authors believe undergraduates may effectively participate. Finally, it offers university faculty and administrators suggestions on how this model may be replicated on other campuses in the United States, particularly on creating an effective partnership between universities and traditional providers of community services.[11]
II. Concurrent Trends: Service-Learning in Undergraduate Institutions and Restricted Access to Justice in the Communities They Serve
A. To Serve is to Learn: Service-Learning in Undergraduate Programs
There is no shortage of definitions of service-learning:[12] The recent article, Putting the Learning in Service Learning: From Soup Kitchen Models to the Black Metropolis Model, offered that it is a “[pedagogy requiring] students to insert themselves as social actors and agents into a particular community, place, or experience outside the classroom”[13] and cited a general definition of service-learning as “a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community need together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development.[14]” Service-learning combines internships, classroom activities, and community service into a single educational experience.[15]
The concept of “service learning” or experiential education began in the 1960’s through federal and local grants to college and university cooperative educational programs.[16] Since then, it has increased in popularity on college and university campuses.[17] A national survey conducted in 1993 suggested that undergraduate students wished to increase their commitment to community service, which supported a call for campuses to better integrate the community’s needs into student life.[18] Further, the concept of the “new university” under which universities are urged to “respond to the challenges that confront” its communities, “just as land-grant colleges responded to the needs of agriculture and industry a century ago” propelled the development of service-learning opportunities on college campuses.[19]
Service learning is not limited to law-related courses. For example, CSUN’s Community Service Learning Center creates educational opportunities through community partnerships.[20] CSUN students participating in community service-learning provide direct service to nonprofit and public organizations and with their professors explore the connection between their service and the academic learning objectives.[21] Community service learning opportunities exist in a wide range of disciplines including music, communication studies, accounting, tax, and management.[22]
B. Justice Denied: The Reduction in Indigents’ Access to Justice
The funding of legal services for the poor has been the victim of a political backlash against the progressive law reform led by legal services in the mid-20th century.[23] At its inception in 1974, the Legal Services Corporation (LSC)[24] showed the marks of backlash through restrictions placed on the types of legal services it could fund.[25] Although President Reagan’s attempt to terminate the LSC failed, he successfully and sharply reduced its funding, a trend continued by Congress in its reduction of LSC funding to approximately half of what it had been in 1980.[26] Congressional restrictions on LSC-funded organizations imposed in 1996, such as a prohibition on defending public housing tenants evicted for drug-related reasons, further weakened legal services delivery.[27] The cuts in funding led to LSC-funded organizations “unbundling” legal services[28] and creating “pro se clinics”[29] or self-help centers
.
The drastic reduction in LSC funding and the curtailment of the types of services attached to the receipt of LSC funds has had a dramatic impact on access to justice: only one-half of eligible people seeking legal assistance from an LSC agency actually receive it due to scarcity of resources.[30]
C. The Legal Clinic and Access to Justice
The importance of law school clinics to both legal education and community service cannot be overstated. As U.S. Attorney General under the Reagan Administration, Ed Meese suggested that law school volunteerism could replace LSC in providing legal services to the indigent.[31] Law school clinics have indeed played an important role in supplementing services for the populations affected by the budgetary and operational restrictions placed on LSC-funded organizations. For example, in Wyoming, the Wyoming Legal Services, which has a staff of approximately ten attorneys, receives approximately $600,000 of LSC funding to serve the state’s estimated 55,000 indigent.[32] The University of Wyoming College of Law Legal Services Program provides assistance to indigent in three counties and in the state’s correctional institutions.[33]
According to one study, 182 law schools offer clinics in more than 130 subject areas.[34] Most of these clinics serve low-income clients.[35] The LSC has urged states to develop statewide delivery systems of legal services to the poor, which has been seen as an opportunity for law schools to share in the formation of “state justice communities.”[36]
The opportunities for learning and serving the community, which are the dual goals of the law school clinic,[37] have been extended to undergraduates. For example, the Santa Clara University School of Law’s Katharine & George Alexander Community Center invites undergraduates to, without becoming “directly involved” in its “clients’ legal problems (due to client confidentiality),” serve “very important functions at the Law Center” such as providing interpretation for monolingual clients, and producing “newsletters, brochures, and fact sheets.”[38] Could undergraduate students take a more direct role in addressing access to justice?
III. Using Undergraduate Students in Service Learning Legal Clinics: Ethical Issues and Solutions
In restricting the use of its undergraduates in its Law Center, the Santa Clara University School of Law cites concerns with confidentiality.[39] Concerns with college students’ ability to uphold the tenets of legal professional responsibility which include avoiding the unauthorized practice of law along with maintaining confidentiality are understandable, but do not present an insurmountable obstacle to the use of undergraduates in legal clinics.
A. Whose Professional Responsibility is it?
Despite the law school clinic’s established place in legal education, analysis of the ethical issues presented by students’ engagement in such an activity has only recently begun.[40] This analysis does not directly address the ethical problems presented to and by the use of undergraduates in legal clinics. The American Bar Association (ABA) Model Student Practice Rule, adopted in all fifty states and the District of Columbia, allows certified clinical law students under close supervision of a licensed attorney to give legal advice to clients.[41] However, such an opportunity is not available to nonlawyer assistants that would include undergraduates serving in a law clinic.[42] Under ABA Model Rule 5.3, the supervising attorney of the nonlawyer assistant bears the responsibility to “make reasonable efforts to ensure that the nonlawyer assistant's conduct "is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer."[43] Thus, either the professor as supervising attorney or an external community partner’s staff attorney[44] is held responsible for the undergraduate’s conduct in the legal clinic.
B. Professional Responsibility as Learning Opportunity
Fulfillment of the supervising attorney’s professional responsibility provides an exciting learning opportunity for undergraduates serving in legal clinics. Modeling professional responsibility, monitoring the students’ conduct in the clinic, and holding the students to the ethical standards required of attorneys not only serve to fulfill a supervising attorney’s responsibilities, but also offer students the chance to learn and apply the concepts of attorneys’ professional responsibility.
Communication of expectations is a first step toward this learning opportunity. The original course description for the CSUN business law “tenant legal clinic” which offered direct service to low-income tenants advised students that they were “expected to maintain the same client confidentiality mandatory in any attorney-client relationship and conduct themselves as they would if they were attorneys. All legal representation is performed in conjunction with a supervising attorney and no case is retained unless approved by the supervising attorney.”[45]
The course’s learning objectives communicated to students also encompass issues of professional responsibility. For example, the Fall 2002 course syllabus of CSUN’s BLAW 490CS set forth the learning objectives which included a statement that, at the end of this course, students “will be able to: …identify issues of professional responsibility including pro bono and self-help legal access centers, and understand the duties involved.”[46] Meaningful coverage of substantive rules of professional responsibility and their application in legal clinics and self-help centers in class is required for achievement of this learning objective. In the third class session of the Fall 2002 BLAW 490CS class, the same week in which students began their service, “Ethics and Professional Responsibility” was the first topic discussed in class. Students had been introduced to relevant ethical issues discussed through a law review article assigned as reading.[47] Scenarios of ethical issues were discussed as well.
Operationally, an agreement between student and clinic or self-help center serves to support and maintain professional responsibility requirements and students’ fulfillment of ethical expectations. For example, the Van Nuys Self-Help Legal Access Center’s Volunteer Agreement, signed by each student in the Fall 2002 class, sets forth the requirements to which the student “commits” to fulfilling. Under this agreement, the student is required to, among other things, “obtain a ‘back-up’ review by the Staff Attorney, for every assignment”[48] he or she is given, which avoids the unauthorized practice of law as well as taking reasonable steps to ensure accuracy of information being disseminated. Further, the student agrees “to keep confidential the names of litigants” who come to the Center, which helps to ensure confidentiality, and “not to act outside the scope of my volunteer duties while representing the Center.”[49] This provides boundaries which might be necessary for the protection of the students’ safety and best interests, and also offers an introduction to the professional distance needed for attorneys to avoid conflicts of interest.[50]
Assessment of achievement of the learning outcomes associated with professional responsibility depend largely on evaluation by the supervising attorney, whether a staff member of the community partner or the professor. CSUN’s Center for Community-Service Learning developed a student performance evaluation form for use by an external agency which included a rating on a 1-5 scale the student’s “respect for confidentiality.”
IV. Creation and Operation of Clinic
In Spring 1999, the Tenant Legal Clinic at California State University, Northridge began. With five undergraduate students and three professors, it offered a weekly “drop-in” clinic in one of the classrooms at the College of Business and Economics.
The five students were selected based upon their outstanding performance in their business law and liberal studies courses, their commitment to community service, and their desire to gain practical experience helping low-income tenants from the community. They completed twenty-hours of classroom training, which included a review of the relevant law of landlord-tenant, professionalism, ethics, diversity, and provision of legal services to the poor. Each week, the students met for three hours in small group sessions. They were assigned readings from textbooks and law review articles. They were given both a midterm and final exam.[51] They were also required to keep weekly journals of their experiences throughout the semester.[52]
A. Phase One: “Walk-in Clinic”
The Clinic was designed as a pro se “drop-in” clinic to handle basic landlord-tenant questions and concerns. It assisted low-income tenants only, using the local Los Angeles County Superior Court’s fee waiver guidelines as eligibility determinates.[53] The Clinic was open each Tuesday afternoon from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. for the Spring 1999 semester.
Along with five students, the Clinic was staffed by three professors who were also attorneys and active members of the State Bar of California. As in many drop-in community legal clinics, students completed pre-printed intake forms designed to elicit certain fundamental facts regarding the client’s legal problem, income eligibility, and statement of understanding.
The client completed the intake form, the student met separately with the supervising professor. The professor reviewed the intake form and discussed the legal problem with the student. The student returned to the client, following the directions just received from the professor.
1. Cases Handled
During the Spring 1999 semester, twenty-five clients visited the Clinic. The cases ranged from simple security deposit concerns to eviction matters. Although most clients received basic counsel and advice, the Clinic retained four matters for further representation in court.
Students worked in pairs on each of the non-court related matters. In one case, the client complained that her landlord failed to return her security deposit after she vacated her rental unit. Under California law,[54] a landlord was required to return all of a tenant’s security deposit within three weeks of vacating a rental unit or, within that same time, provide the tenant with a written itemization of how the security was used along with a return of the balance, if any.
The client had a well-documented case. She resided in the rental unit for less than two years. She adamantly asserted that she left the rental unit in the same, if not better, condition as when she moved in. The landlord failed to return either her security deposit or an itemization of its disposition.
The students agreed to write a letter to the landlord to be sent under the signature of their professor who was also their supervising attorney. As part of their learning experience, the students were required to research the issue, starting with course readings, to find the relevant statute in the California Civil Code, searched for case law defining the statutory language, and conducted other internet-based legal research.[55] After gathering, reviewing, and synthesizing their research, and discussing the results with the professor, the students drafted a demand letter to the landlord.
The professor critiqued the letter for content, grammar, style, and reasoning skill. The professor had the students produce several drafts of the letter before it was ready for the client’s review and approval. The letter was sent to the landlord by the professor on his own attorney letterhead.[56]
2. The First “Retained” Case for Court Litigation
In February 1999, Teresa M. arrived at the Clinic along with her two-year-old daughter. Teresa had just moved into her $500 per-month rent-controlled apartment in Van Nuys, a Los Angeles suburb located in the San Fernando Valley. Teresa complained to her landlord about various problems in the rental unit: inadequate heat; rusty water; leaks in the ceiling; slow drainage in the bathtub and kitchen sink; and other similar problems.[57] After living in the rental unit for one month, the landlord refused Teresa’s rent payment. Her landlord lied in the affidavit regarding Teresa’s failure to tender the payment when he served her with a three-day notice to pay rent or quit. Soon after, her landlord had her served with a lawsuit for eviction[58]. Frustrated and unable to communicate in English, Teresa began to look for help.
Unfortunately, Teresa did not have legal documentation to live or work in the United States. Her local LSC-funded legal aid office which could not provide Teresa with assistance referred her to the newly-created CSUN Tenant Legal Clinic.[59]
Under attorney supervision, two students prepared Teresa’s responsive pleading.[60] The students then accompanied Teresa to the courthouse and helped her obtain and prepare a fee waiver application (waiving the filing fee)[61] and ensured that the answer to the lawsuit was properly filed. Approximately two weeks later, Teresa received a trial date.
The students visited Teresa’s apartment. Acting as de facto investigators, they collected samples of the rotting carpet and placed them into evidence bags; took pictures of the water damaged ceiling; and observed the plumbing, hot water, and other habitability problems first hand.
The trial date was scheduled for the second day of CSUN’s 1999 Spring Break. Instead of joining their peers on vacation, all the students appeared in court that day ready to assist Teresa. Two of the professors served as Teresa’s attorneys of record, two students were ready to testify about the apartment’s uninhabitable conditions, and one student acted as Teresa’s translator.
The landlord and his attorney were overwhelmed by the Clinic’s advocacy on behalf of Teresa. Just prior to starting trial, the landlord offered Teresa three months’ free rent in exchange for vacating the rental unit. Teresa accepted the offer, deciding that she could use that money to look for an apartment with better living conditions and a better landlord.
Although disappointed that the case would not be going to trial, the students were very pleased with the result. They also recognized that Teresa would not have been able to obtain such a favorable outcome had the Clinic and its staff not been there to help.
3. Total Cases Handled
During its first semester of operation (Spring 1999), the Clinic provided advice and service to twenty-two clients. It represented three clients in court, including Teresa. In its second semester of operation (Spring 2000), the Clinic was supervised by only one professor. Therefore, the Clinic provided only advice and self-help assistance, serving nineteen clients.
B. Phase Two: Partnering with Legal Services
Beginning Fall 2000, the Self-Help Legal Access Center conceived by the Los Angeles County Superior Court, the San Fernando Valley Bar Association, and the Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (“Legal Services”)[62] began operation out of a converted courtroom in the Van Nuys, California courthouse. Five students from CSUN helped staff the operation.
In Spring 2001, an additional eleven students worked at the courthouse location. Along with other volunteers and supervising attorneys from Legal Services, they served approximately fifty people each day, providing assistance with responsive pleadings to unlawful detainer actions and various pleadings involving family law matters. The students identified three compelling eviction cases that they brought back to their supervising professors’ attention. Under the supervision of CSUN Clinic professors who served as attorneys of record, the group assisted with the representation of the tenants in court.
C. Grants and other University Support
The Tenant Legal Clinic received both external and internal support. The bulk of monetary support came from the Southern California Advocacy Project (SCAP), an external nonprofit agency. SCAP provided an initial grant of $5,000 to the Clinic which was used to purchase office equipment and supplies, purchase practice guides and other legal periodicals, pay court related fees, and pay bar dues for the attorneys. Additionally, various individuals provided private donations totaling $1,500 during the five-year operation of the Clinic in response to various fundraising efforts.
CSUN provided in-kind support, including office space and staff. During the final two years of the Clinic’s operation, it shared a large office space with three other CSUN centers staffed with one full time staff assistant.
D. “College Appropriate Cases”
Law school clinics sometimes retain complex cases in order to provide an enhanced learning experience.[63] However, undergraduate students with little or no legal background need simple matters with limited legal issues in order to effectively gain a meaningful experience from the interaction with the client. In our experience, we have identified five types of legal matters that we feel comfortable allowing undergraduate students to engage.
1. Landlord-Tenant Cases
In California, landlord-tenant law is confined to a few simple routine situations that have a relatively narrow and defined body of law, thus allowing undergraduate students to easily gain a grasp on the subject matter through trainings and reading materials prior to engaging their first clients. There is also no short supply of low-income tenants in need of such services. Therefore, assisting tenants facing legal problems is a fitting task for an undergraduate legal clinic, particularly in California.
Security deposit matters are probably the most common and easiest in which undergraduates may engage. The law regarding security deposits is fairly straight-forward. For example, the California Civil Code contains one statute defining the requirements for security deposits.[64] Additionally, only approximately ten California appellate court cases have interpreted and defined this state statute.[65]
Students who worked on security deposit cases were given the pertinent statute to read along with a training session on the basics of the California security deposit law. After receiving a firm foundation on the various requirements, exceptions, and defenses applicable to this area of law, students assisted clients with security deposit issues. Not surprisingly, the California State University, Northridge student body itself had many such victims of landlords in the local community.
Students usually worked in pairs. The students interviewed the clients, documented the relevant information on a pre-printed interview form designed by the Clinic and modeled after a similar form used by a local legal services provider, and copied as much of the relevant documentation as possible.[66] Students would draft demand letters under the professor’s direct supervision and eventually send them to the landlords. If the matter could not be settled, students would assist the clients with the preparation of small claims court complaints.
2. Small Claims Court
Small claims courts serve an essential part of the legal system in the United States, and the California court establishment has one of the largest in the country.[67] In California, attorneys are not permitted to represent litigants in small claims court.[68] However, they are permitted to provide assistance outside of court, including the preparation of small claims court forms.[69]
The amounts in controversy are usually small and the legal issues relatively simple.[70] The jurisdictional limit is $5,000,[71] but the average claim is approximately $2,200.[72] Many litigants are low income and are unable to afford legal assistance anyway.
Because of the relative simplicity of small claims court proceedings, these legal matters lend themselves well to the use of undergraduate clinic students. The Self-Help Center provided legal assistance to individuals who needed help with completing the small claims court complaint, fee waiver applications, and with general organization in preparing and presenting their small claims court cases. Unresolved security deposit matters were classic cases suitable for the small claims court system.
3. Family Law Matters
Family law is an area in which there is much demand for legal services. In California, the petition, response, income and expense declaration, and child custody components have become rather routine. However, without legal assistance, they can be overwhelming for pro se litigants, especially those who have limited education, limited ability to speak English, and have no funds to hire representation.
The preparation of these documents proved to be an excellent compliment to the business school education of our students. Every upper-division business major at CSUN has taken at least two accounting courses, making them comfortable with issues such as income and expense declarations, net worth, and community property.
V. Pedagogical Approaches
The pedagogies that may be used in undergraduate legal service learning classes include those approaches traditionally seen in business law classrooms along with methods common in service learning courses. As Professor Manley et al. observed, one challenge facing service-learning lies in gaining “institutional legitimacy” in the face of concerns that service-learning “lacks educational quality and merit.”[73] To meet this challenge, the authors suggest employing a synthesis of classroom lectures and activities and multiple learning tools in service-learning pedagogy. The CSUN Tenant Legal Clinic employed a variety of active and reflective pedagogical approaches to achieve its learning objectives.
A. Lectures, Readings, and Guest Speakers
Although undergraduate students do not provide legal advice or legal representation in the direct service clinic or self-help center, an ability to identify and analyze issues arising in the relevant substantive fields is necessary to a fulfilling and productive service learning experience. For example, course learning objectives in Business Law 490CS included the ability to “identify and analyze issues arising in landlord-tenant law,” and “to integrate substantive knowledge gained in this and other business courses in the provision of community service.”[74] Further, students would be able to “educate” others on the basic principles of landlord-tenant law.[75]
To help students meet these objectives, students’ reading assignments ranged from Nolo Press books on tenants’ rights to court opinions and law review articles.[76] Lectures from the instructor and guests including staff attorneys from the community partner, Legal Services focused on substantive issues with ensuing discussion engaging students in critical thinking.
B. Simulated Exercises
To build both analytical and practical skills as well as the ability to apply their substantive knowledge to actual cases,[77] students engaged in simulated exercises in class as well. For example, early in the Fall 2002 semester, BLAW 490CS students were given three scenarios in class involving cases they might see at the Self-Help Center: for example, an elderly tenant injured in her apartment but fearful of eviction if she sought damages from her landlord. In groups of three, students took turns playing the interviewer as well as the litigant and an observer. At the end of each scenario, they were asked to reflect on their roles and to give feedback to each other. Even in a simulated classroom exercise, students gained perspective on the feelings of the litigant that could ultimately benefit their interviewing skills.
C. Journals and other Writing Exercises
As Eyler and Giles observe: “Although the experience of service itself has an impact, reflection adds power” to the student’s learning experience.[78] In the Fall 2002 semester, students were required to maintain a “Reflection Journal” throughout the course and submit weekly entries each week beginning with their service in the Self-Help Center.[79] The journal entries were to be typewritten and approximately two pages in length, consisting of three parts regarding their weekly service: a factual account of what they observed and did; a reflection on these observations and experiences; and a description of how these observations and experiences related to the substantive law studies in this and other business law classes including specific citations to the applicable law as well as statement and analysis of the issues presented.[80] Journal entries were graded on a scale of 1-10 for organization, substance, and writing.[81]
To assist in this assignment, students were provided with an electronic copy of a “journal work sheet” they could complete after seeing a litigant. The work sheet included space for “concluding thoughts” with an admonition: “Don’t give advice! This is for the journal only.” This served as a reminder to maintain the boundaries established by the mission of the Self-Help Center as well as to avoid the unauthorized practice of law.
Journal entries were used in class discussion. Without providing names, students shared their experiences and reflections during “case review” in class which was in turn used as a basis for questions by the instructor and discussion with students.
Further, in-class writing exercises allowed students to continue their reflection with directed questions. For example, the quote from the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall on access to justice found under the heading of the Fall 2002 course syllabus was the basis for an in-class writing exercise in the first class session.[82] Students were asked to write a paragraph explaining their reaction to and interpretation of the statement. During the last class session, students returned to this question without reference to their response given over three months earlier. These reflections evidenced the impact of the service learning experience and the class readings and discussion of the larger issues of access to justice:[83] perhaps these assignments and exercises added to the impact’s depth as well.
D. Exams
In the Fall 2002 semester, BLAW 490CS students took both a midterm and final exam. Both exams consisted of multiple-choice questions requiring students to apply substantive knowledge to short scenarios as well as an essay question requiring identification and analysis of legal issues. The final exam also incorporated a “take home” essay question in which students were able to select one of nine questions regarding access to justice and closely related issues explored in class. The objective of this aspect of the exam was to allow students to analyze and communicate their conclusions on these larger, policy-oriented issues. In the age of assessment of learning outcomes for accrediting bodies, such exploration and testing might be threatened. The service learning class offers a wonderful opportunity to integrate this type of exploration in the undergraduate curriculum.
VII. Conclusion
Although law schools traditionally incorporate legal clinics into their curricula, undergraduate programs have rarely done so. A law school-style clinical experience provides opportunities for college students to gain a meaningful service-learning experience while offering the community greater access to justice. The increase in emphasis on and support of service learning on college campuses comes at a time when communities are seeking creative ways to provide greater access to justice. These two trends support the inclusion of undergraduates in service-learning legal clinics.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Louisiana's Legal Clinics. Where Business Meets Justice, Economist, September 12, 1998, at 30: “Since the 1960s, law school clinics--which use supervised student lawyers to handle real cases--have been a staple of American legal education.” In 1996, the American Bar Association altered its accreditation standards to require that law schools encourage students to engage in pro bono activities and to provide opportunities for them to do so as law students. See e.g. Christina M. Rosas, Note, Mandatory Pro Bono Practice for Law Students: Right Place to Start, 30 Hofstra L. Rev. 1069 (Spring 2002) at note 46.
[2] William Quigley, Introduction to Clinical Teaching for the New Clinical Law Professor: A View from the First Floor, 28 Akron Law Review 463 (Spring 1995). “The earliest legal education in the United States was clinical. It came in the apprentice system, where the prospective lawyer "read law" in the office of a practicing lawyer. This apprenticeship system was based on the English practice of clerking with experienced practitioners, a system which was an outgrowth of the Inns of Court.” Id.
[3] Id. See also Derek Bok, Beyond the Ivory Tower: Social Responsibilities of the Modern University 72 (1984). “Every outstanding law school seeks to develop in its students an awareness of jurisprudence and legal history as well as a mastery of practical skills.”
[4] Id. See also William Quigley, Introduction to Clinical Teaching for the New Clinical Law Professor: A View from the First Floor, 28 Akron L. Rev. 463 (Spring 1995). “The mission of clinical education has always had two goals: to educate students in a new way of learning and to provide legal services to the indigent.” Id.
[5] See infra at notes 23-27.
[6] One national survey of 458 universities revealed that in the fiscal years 1995-1997, these schools developed approximately three thousand service learning programs. Jane Eyler and Dwight E. Giles Jr., Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning? 6 (1999).
[7] See Eyler & Giles, supra note 6, at 3-4.
[8] California State University, Northridge, located in the diverse community of the San Fernando Valley, has 33,000 students enrolled.
[9] Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County is the primary Legal Services Corporation funded program in the community surrounding California State University, Northridge. Its mission statement reads: “Since 1965, Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLS-LA) has provided free legal services to low-income residents. We serve all of Los Angeles County, including the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys, the neighboring communities in the Pomona, Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys, and the cities of Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena. NLS-LA provides the highest quality services to its clients, individually and collectively. Our advocacy is directed towards both the needs of the individual client requesting legal assistance, and to clients who seek to enforce the broader rights of the low-income community. Equally important to NLS-LA is the development of self-help skills and other tools, which allow clients and client groups to solve their own problems and improve their lives and communities. (emphasis added) (available at: http://www.nls-la.org/). For discussion of self-help legal access centers, see Tina Rasnow, Traveling Justice: Providing Court Based Pro Se Assistance to Limited Access Communities, 29 Fordham Urb. L. J. 1281 (February 2002).
[10] Although the Tenant Legal Clinic no longer exists, the reasons for its demise are peculiar and do not bear on the feasibility of such clinics at other universities. As such, the particular circumstances leading to the Tenant Legal Clinic’s demise will not be discussed in this article.
[11] Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County in the primary Legal Services Corporation funded program in the community surrounding California State University, Northridge. Its mission statement reads: “Since 1965, Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLS-LA) has provided free legal services to low-income residents. We serve all of Los Angeles County, including the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys, the neighboring communities in the Pomona, Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys, and the cities of Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena. NLS-LA provides the highest quality services to its clients, individually and collectively. Our advocacy is directed towards both the needs of the individual client requesting legal assistance, and to clients who seek to enforce the broader rights of the low-income community. Equally important to NLS-LA is the development of self-help skills and other tools, which allow clients and client groups to solve their own problems and improve their lives and communities.” (emphasis added) (available at: http://www.nls-la.org/).
[12] “In 1990, Jane Kendall wrote that there were 147 definitions (of ‘service learning’) in the literature, and there has been no falling away of interest in this endeavor since.” Jane Eyler and Dwight E. Giles Jr., Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning? 3 (1999).
[13] Theodoric Manley, Jr., Avery S. Buffa, Caleb Dube, and Lauren Reed, Putting the Learning in Service Learning: From Soup Kitchen Models to the Black Metropolis Model, 38:2 Educ. & Urb. Soc. 115-116 (February 2006). The authors of this article further defined two different models of service learning: one is the “soup kitchen” model under which students have limited interaction with those served, and the “black metropolis” model which assist students internalize their service experience to truly learn. Id. at 117-118.
[15] Id. All three components must be present in order for the program to be considered service learning. “In contrast to voluntary service, service learning formally integrates community service with academic study. In doing so, service learning overcomes some of the shortcomings of voluntary service by articulating explicit educational objectives that are evaluated, by involving faculty and campus resources in a deliberate way that is consistent with the institutional mission, and by representing the learning experiences on the course transcript.” Id. “Service learning allows students to apply what they are learning to real-world problems, become more involved in the community surrounding the campus, and develop career goals at an earlier age than they might otherwise...” Ben Cose, Many Colleges Move to Link Courses with Volunteerism, Chron. Higher Educ., November 14, 1007, at A45.
[16] Linda F. Smith, Externships: Learning from Practice: Why Clinical Programs Should Embrace Civic Engagement, Service Learning, and Community Based Research, 10 Clinical L. Rev. 723, 725 (Spring 2004).
[17] Bill Coplin, Lost in the Life of the Mind, Chron. Higher Educ., September 3, 2004, at 5.
[18] Arthur Levine, Community and College Student Volunteers in Social Service, Change, July-August 1994, at 4-5.
[19] See Rand, supra note 14, at 117.
[20] http://www.csun.edu/~ocls99/.
[23] Scott L. Cummings, The Politics of Pro Bono, 52 UCLA L. Rev. 1, 21 (2004).
[24] The Legal Services Corporation is a private, nonprofit corporation established by the United States Congress to provide legal services to the indigent. See generally, http://www.lsc.gov/about/lsc.php.
[25] See Cummings, supra note 23 at 21.
[28] Unbundling is the separation of legal services “into discrete tasks, with an understanding between the lawyer and client that the lawyer will provide only selected legal services that may not address the client’s entire legal problem.” Mary Helen McNeal, Unbundling and Law School Clinics: Where’s the Pedagogy?, 7 Clinical L. Rev. 341, 350 (Spring 2001)
[29] See Cummings, supra note 23 at 22-23. For discussion of pro se “self help centers,” see Rasnow, supra note 9.
[31] See Cummings, supra note 23 at 23.
[32] Leigh Anne G. Manlove, Unmet Legal Needs in Wyoming: The Necessity to Increase the Capacity for the Public Good, 5 Wyo. L. Rev. 471, 473-474 (2005).
[34] Lua Kamal Yuille, No One’s Perfect (Not Even Close): Reevaluating Access to Justice in the United States and Western Europe, 42 Colum. J. Transnat’l L. 863, 904-905 (2004).
[36] Larry R. Spain, Public Interest Law: Improving Access to Justice: The Opportunities and Challenges of Providing Equal Access to Justice in Rural Communities, 28 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 367 (2001).
[37] See Quigley, supra note 4.
[38] See http://www.scu.edu/law/kgaclc/opportunities_for_undergraduates.html.
[40] Peter A. Joy, The Ethics of Law School Clinic Students as Student-Lawyers, 45 S. Tex. L. Rev. 815 (Fall 2004), [citations omitted].
[41] Peter A. Joy and Robert R. Keuhn, Conflict of Interest and Competency Issues in Law Clinic Practice, 9 Clinical L. Rev. 493, 496 (Fall 2002) [citations omitted].
[43] Id. at 503, 515-516.
[44] See infra text accompanying notes 49 - 63.
[45] See “Syllabus, Business Law 490CS (Spring 2001), California State University, Northridge” (on file with author.)
[47] Id. The article assigned offers insight into the experience of serving in a legal clinic from the perspective of a law student. See Fernando M. Pinguelo, The Struggle Between Legal Theory and Practice: One Law Student’s Effort to Maintain the ‘Proper’ Balance, 1998 BYU Educ. & L. J. 173 (Spring 1998).
[48] See “Volunteer Agreement” (on file with author.)
[50] ABA Model Rules of Prof’l Conduct 1.7 - 1.10 (Conflict of Interest.)
[51] See infra text accompanying note 83 further discussion of exams in service-learning legal clinics.
[52] See infra text accompanying notes 78-81 for further discussion of the use of journals in service-learning legal clinics.
[53] See Cal. Rule Court 985.
[54] See Cal. Civ. Code § 1950.5.
[55] Through the CSUN main library, students have free access to the Lexis-Nexis database service.
[56] The Clinic made the decision to have the professors send demand letters on their own stationary and using their private offices outside of the University. The reasons for this were several: (1) The attorney’s own malpractice insurance coverage was triggered; (2) the landlord did not get misled by receiving a letter on University letterhead (even though it was clearly designated as coming from the Tenant Legal Clinic); and (3) the landlord took the demand more seriously: this was not a mere “class project” from an ordinary college classroom.
[57] A California residential tenant has a right to expect a landlord to maintain a rental unit in a certain minimum habitable condition. See Bruce Zucker, Green Perseveres: The Implied Warranty of Habitability Enters the 21st Century in California, 20 T. Jefferson L. Rev. 277 (Summer 1998) [“In 1974, with the landmark California Supreme Court decision Green v. Superior Court, n1 the common law doctrine of the implied warranty of habitability became recognized in California residential leases. Not only did Green place an obligation upon California's residential landlords to keep rental units in livable condition, n2 it also began the "habitability" defense in unlawful detainer actions. For the first time in California, a landlord's ability to regain possession of a rental unit was conditioned upon its maintenance in satisfactory condition.”]
[58] This action is commonly referred to as “unlawful detainer” under California law. See Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 1161 for California’s legal definition of “unlawful detainer.” For an overview of the unlawful detainer process in California, see generally Bruce Zucker, California Pretrial Rent Deposit Pilot Project: A Legal and Empirical Analysis of the System in Action in the Los Angeles Municipal Court (Central Division), 35 Cal. W. L. Rev. 159 (Fall 1998).
[59] After 1996, Most legal aid programs became unable to provide undocumented litigants with legal assistance. “None of the funds appropriated . . . to the Legal Services Corporation may be used to provide financial assistance to any person or entity . . . that provides legal assistance [to] any alien, unless the alien is present in the United States and [is a legal permanent resident, is a close relative to a citizen and has an application pending for status as a lawful permanent resident, has been granted asylum or admission as a refugee – including conditional entry as a refugee prior to April 1, 1980, whose order of deportation has been withheld by the Attorney General, or belongs to a narrow category of lawfully admitted agricultural workers.” Omnibus Consolidated Rescissions and Appropriations Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-134, § 504(a)(18), 110 Stat. 1321, 50 (1996).
[60] Two of the five students were fluent in both Spanish and English.
[63] Nancy M. Mauer, Clinical Essay: Handling Big Cases in Law School Clinics, or Lessons from my Clinic Sabbatical. 9 Clinical L. Rev. 879 (Spring 2003). “The unique benefits of handling big cases in law school clinics are many. First, handling big cases inspires faculty development and learning which in turn leads to better teaching. Second, participation in such cases under the supervision of an enthusiastic clinic faculty enhances student learning. Third, because of the long-term nature of such cases, both faculty and students have the opportunity to get to know our clients better as individuals rather than as problems or disabilities. Fourth, since big cases typically require students to work with each other as well as with faculty, students are exposed to a collaborative learning process. Fifth, the community receives a public service benefit from such pro bono assistance which may not otherwise be available from the private bar. Finally, the law school also satisfies its commitment to the community and derives public relations benefits through such representation.” Id. at 882.
[64] See Cal. Civ. Code § 1950.5.
[65] See, e.g., Kraus v. Trinity Management Services, 57 Cal. App. 4th 709 (1997); Action Apartment Association v. Santa Monica Rent Control Board, 94 Cal. App. 4th 587 (2001); Granberry v. Islay Investments, 9 Cal. 4th 738 (1995).
[66] Students were trained to ask for copies of leases, cancelled checks, move-in and move-out inventories, etc.
[67] Bruce Zucker and Monica Her, The People's Court Examined: A Legal and Empirical Analysis of the Small Claims Court System, 37 U.S.F.L. Rev. 315 (Winter 2003).
[68] Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 116.530.
[70] See Bruce Zucker and Monica Her, The People's Court Examined: A Legal and Empirical Analysis of the Small Claims Court System, 37 U.S.F. L. Rev. 315 (Winter 2003) [“In order to provide an expedient and efficient process for the resolution of such ‘minor civil disputes,’ the California Legislature created and passed the Small Claims Act, currently codified as California Code of Civil Procedure Section 116.”]
[73] See Manley supra at note 13.
[77] See Eyler and Giles note 6 at 196 for discussion of role plays in service learning classes.
[78] See supra notes 33-34.
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