Clinics
Students in clinics work with real clients on real cases, under the supervision of our expert faculty.
Some BC Law clinics provide limited community legal services. Looking for representation?
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Amicus Brief Clinic
The Amicus Brief Clinic provides students and faculty an opportunity to weigh in on, and attempt to influence, the development of the law and public policy in the courts. A student team researches, writes, edits, and submits an amicus brief to the court for consideration.
Director
Overview
The Amicus Curiae brief provides a formal avenue for interested non-parties to offer new information and unique insights to a court. The amicus brief procedure allows the court to take advantage of expertise with respect to a matter or policy that is before the court and to consider implications of the court's ruling beyond those raised by the parties to the litigation. Amicus briefs are accepted under certain conditions by a wide variety of courts, including the US Supreme Court, federal and state appellate courts, as well as international tribunals such as the European Court of Human Rights, the International Criminal Court, the Court of Justice of the European Union, among many others.
Details
The Amicus Brief Clinic is a “pop-up” clinic at BC Law. A pop-up clinic is a temporary clinic established and run for a very short period of time and for a specific purpose.
2-credit, one-semester clinical opportunity
The subject matter and faculty leader of each amicus brief will be different
Every Amicus Brief Clinic will include instruction and supervision on legal research and writing as well as the rules relating to submission of amicus briefs.
Amicus Brief Clinic Files First Brief
Filed with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the brief responded to a request from the court for additional information on the proper standards for a judicially mandated dissolution of a corporation. The brief was drafted by students Niloufar Abae and Alex Pena, with assistance from Professors Brian Quinn and Tom Carey.
Read the AMICUS BRIEF
Civil Litigation Clinic: Housing Justice
Students in the Civil Litigation: Housing Justice Clinic represent local low-income residents in cases involving family law, landlord-tenant disputes, public benefits, eviction, foreclosure, and access to government-funded housing.
Director
Overview
Students plan and conduct every phase of civil litigation, including:
- Initial client interviews
- Legal strategy
- Counseling clients
- Pretrial discovery and motion hearings
- Settlement negotiations
- Pleadings
- Courtroom advocacy, including trials and administrative hearings
- Drafting and arguing appeals
Clinical faculty guide students, attending hearings and trials and giving feedback at every stage.
Civil Rights Clinic
In the Civil Rights Clinic, teams of students address civil rights issues affecting low-wage workers, immigrants & prisoners in Massachusetts by engaging in individual client representation as well as community and policy advocacy projects.
Director
Overview
As they engage in different modes of lawyering, students in this clinic are encouraged to think critically about the role of the lawyer, client, and community in policy advocacy. Each student in the clinic will be assigned at least one litigation matter and one community or policy advocacy matter. On the litigation side, representative matters may include civil rights cases on behalf of low-wage workers, immigrants & prisoners. On the community advocacy side, representative matters may include supporting grassroots organizations with their organizing campaigns, legislative advocacy or other research and outreach projects.
The clinic is part of the innovative Legal Services LAB, a fully functioning law firm within BC's Center for Experiential Learning.
Community Enterprise Clinic
Transactional legal matters such as intellectual property issues, commercial leases, and organizational tax exemptions will be addressed by students in the Community Enterprise Clinic representing small businesses, entrepreneurs, and nonprofit organizations in the Greater Boston area.
Director
Counseling a high-tech incubator for minority entrepreneurs, representing a restaurant workers’ advocacy organization, helping a small business navigate import law—these are just some of the opportunities available through our Community Enterprise Clinic (CEC).
The CEC puts students at the center of transactional legal matters as they assist emerging businesses, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits with intellectual property issues, commercial leases, and 501(c)(3) exemptions.
BC Law is one of the only schools in the nation to have a formal collaboration with an established major law firm—Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP—and CEC Director Paul Tremblay wrote the textbook for transactional clinics: Introduction to Transactional Lawyering Practice.
Compassionate Release & Parole Clinic
In the Compassionate Release & Parole Clinic, law students in collaboration with a social worker or social work student will help prepare a petition for compassionate release and a medical parole plan for state prisoners suffering from terminal illnesses or irreversible physical or cognitive incapacitation.
Director
Overview
Students will assess the client’s criminal history, institutional record, physical and mental health, and risk of re-offending. Then they will advocate with the Massachusetts Department of Correction for release and, if not successful, possibly in the Superior Court on appeal.
Defenders Clinic
The Criminal Justice Clinic's integration of prosecution and defense perspectives is a unique feature of the clinical experience at BC Law and grants students access to a range of perspectives and experiences in criminal case preparation and presentation. The Defenders Clinic is designed to encourage students' reflective discernment.
Directors
Overview
Almost 2 million people are currently incarcerated in the US. Students explore the problem of mass incarceration and the role of race and poverty in the criminal legal system through the representation of indigent clients charged with crimes and probation violations.
Details
Students represent clients in all stages of the criminal defense case, from pre-trial hearings through trials in criminal court. Through the clinic, students will learn to be zealous, client-centered advocates. Opportunities for systemic advocacy may arise throughout the year.
"BC's Criminal Justice Clinic was the highlight of my law school experience and shaped the direction of my legal career. My passion for defending the poor, unpopular, and powerless began and flourished in the clinic. I not only learned practical legal skills like oral advocacy, negotiation, client-counseling, and discovery and motions practice but more importantly, the clinic taught me what it really means to provide client-centered representation. I learned to meet clients where they were, to not only hear them but to really listen to their desires and goals, and to engage in creative lawyering to develop outcomes that made sense for their lives. My clients benefit from the lawyer that I am today because of what I learned as a BC Defender."
Chiquisha Robinson '05
Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia Staff Attorney
Entrepreneurship & Innovation Clinic
Students help bring innovative ideas to life, advising social entrepreneurs, tech startups, authors, filmmakers, musicians, and other creative thinkers. Students deal in the worlds of intellectual property, licensing, regulation, and corporate formation in our region’s thriving innovation economy.
Director
Overview
Students in the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Clinic navigate the rapidly evolving field of entrepreneurship law, which includes intellectual property, licensing, regulation, and corporate formation. Working under the supervision of the Clinic director, students will learn to work with organizational clients and learn to represent clients in transactions.
Students may have the opportunity to advise clients on a variety of legal issues, related to new and emerging businesses including:
- Entity choice and corporate formation
- Employment law
- Trademark and copyright registration and protection
- Strategizing, negotiating, drafting and reviewing agreements
- Ongoing corporate matters
Details
The EIC has been accepted into the prestigious trademark portion of the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (“USPTO”) Law School Clinic Certification Program, which allows our students to prosecute a trademark directly and speak with the USPTO examining attorney on behalf of clients.
The clinic is part of the innovative Legal Services LAB, a fully functioning law firm within BC's Center for Experiential Learning.
Housing Court Lawyer for the Day Clinic
Students in the Housing Court Lawyer for the Day Clinic advise and represent low-income clients in eviction matters in Housing Court under close, supportive supervision. Clinic participants are court-certified as Student Attorneys.
Director
Overview
The primary service component will be staffing Boston College Law School’s Lawyer for the Day Program every Tuesday in the Metro South Housing Court. Staffing the program means providing free legal advice, counseling, legal drafting, and, in some cases, negotiation or courtroom advocacy for unrepresented, indigent tenants whose eviction cases are scheduled for an event (mediation, motion hearing, pretrial conference, or trial) on the coverage day.
The second service component will be providing full representation in various divisions of the Housing Court to tenants who wish to have their court eviction records sealed under a new law going into effect in May 2025. Representation will consist of interviewing, drafting and filing pleadings, and oral argument in court to secure sealing of the client’s eviction record.
Immigration Clinic
Students defend noncitizens against deportation, advocate for their release from immigration detention, and give "know your rights" presentations to immigration detainees. Clients are often asylum seekers, long-term residents, victims of crime, juveniles, and other marginalized populations.
Director
Overview
Students gain vital practice skills in interviewing, drafting affidavits, preparing clients for interviews, researching and writing as they do this critical—and sometimes life-saving—work.
The types of cases students assist with include:
- Asylum and other relief based on fear of persecution
- Deportation waivers for long-term U.S. residents
- Adjustment of status for noncitizens with family members who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents
- Visas and relief for victims of violent crimes
- Seeking release from detention in bond hearings and petitions for habeas corpus in federal courts
The Immigration Clinic also works at the intersection of immigration and juvenile legal matters.
The clinic is part of the innovative Legal Services LAB, a fully functioning law firm within BC's Center for Experiential Learning.
Innocence Program
Students study the problem of erroneous convictions and work to remedy and prevent these injustices. Clinic students and faculty represent individuals wrongly convicted in Massachusetts for crimes they did not commit and collaborate with public, private, and nonprofit partners in litigation and public policy reforms.
Directors
Overview
Clinic focuses on cases involving complex factual investigation as well as work with scientific and forensic experts. We co-counsel with the Committee for Public Counsel Services Innocence program and with other attorneys and we also accept cases even where no other counsel is appointed and even if no DNA evidence is available to prove factual innocence.
As part of the Innocence Program, students:
- Evaluate cases of individuals who maintain they did not commit the crimes for which they were convicted and punished
- Represent individuals seeking relief from wrongful conviction or access to scientific testing of physical evidence to prove their innocence
- Plan and conduct factual investigations, including witness interviews
- Work with scientific experts, forensic witnesses, and crime labs
- Draft motions, supporting affidavits, and memoranda in support of motions for forensic testing and post-conviction relief
- Prepare for and participate in judicial proceedings
- Write amicus briefs on issues relating to wrongful convictions
- Engage with faculty and graduate students from Psychology and Social Work on breaking edge on multidisciplinary research to inform public policy
The BC Innocence Program's experiential placements are enriched by two classroom components:
- A weekly experiential seminar devoted to skills training and ethical and professional discernment
- The Wrongful Convictions Seminar, in which students study the problem of erroneous convictions from academic and multidisciplinary perspectives and write and present their own research papers
The BCIP also provides undergraduate internships and public education and attorney training programs highlighting the latest in the field.
The BCIP and co-counsel Chauncey Wood successfully moved to vacate Christopher “Omar” Martinez's murder conviction and secure his release from wrongful incarceration after 20 years.
International Human Rights Practicum
International Human Rights Practicum students advocate for the promotion of international protection of human rights to regional and international courts and other legal organizations that address international human rights issues.
Director
Overview
The International Human Rights Practicum focuses on appellate submissions to regional and international courts and other legal organizations that address international human rights issues. For example, students have worked on submissions to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The Inter-American System for the protection of human rights (IASHR) is the regional system responsible for monitoring, promoting, and protecting human rights in the countries that are members of the Organization of American States (OAS). Currently, it is one of the strongest regional human rights protection systems in the world.
Details
This clinic includes two components.
- The practicum will provide students with practical experiences in advocacy for the promotion of international protection of human rights through amicus briefs before the IACtHR; drafting of legal reports, protocol proposals and hearings before the IACHR; and the possibility of submissions to other human rights tribunals around the world.
- The accompanying seminar will provide an overview on the study of the IASHR, including its normative framework, mechanisms, rights protected and its principal entities. Possible practicum fieldwork at the IACHR (Washington DC) or the IACtHR (San José, Costa Rica) during Spring break. Previous course work in International Law, International Human Rights, and/or International Legal Research is not required, but may provide an enriched perspective to students enrolled in this practicum.
MA AG Civil Litigation Program
Students work directly with Bureau attorneys in the representation of state agencies and officials in state and federal courts.
Director
Overview
Students assigned to the Constitutional and Administrative Law Division will work on a variety of court cases involving administrative and constitutional law, federal courts, and statutory construction. Students assigned to the Trial Division will work on a variety of cases involving employment, tort, civil rights, contracts, and eminent domain and land use law.
Drafting of pleadings, motions, discovery requests and responses, and other litigation documents; legal research and writing of briefs in the trial and appellate courts; possible oral argument in the state courts; and other litigation tasks including taking and defending depositions.
Project Entrepreneur
Project Entrepreneur is centered on using entrepreneurship to foster the successful reentry of individuals with criminal records, primarily those formerly incarcerated, back into society, offering a new beginning for them, their families, and invoking positive change in their communities.
Director
The mission of Project Entrepreneur is to equip the entrepreneurs with the tools necessary to be successful through networking and mentorship and the completion of an important student-facilitated “entrepreneurial fundamentals” class focused on legal aspects of operations, sales and marketing, and strategy.
Example of Student Work
Provide educational information and advice to aspiring business owners who are formerly incarcerated and reentering society,
Prosecution Clinic
Students are placed in the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office and have an opportunity to handle all aspects of misdemeanor and minor felony cases in a local district court.
Directors
Evangeline Sarda (Prosecution)
Overview
Our Criminal Justice Clinic comprises the Defenders Program, the Prosecution Program, and the Criminal Justice Clinic Class.
Details
Professor Sarda meets with students weekly to review and prepare cases for in-court hearings, while in-court supervision is by an assistant district attorney. A unique feature of this clinic is the 2-credit Criminal Justice Clinic seminar, a co-requisite for students in both the BC Defenders and Prosecution Clinic. In the classroom, students receive skills training and are exposed to different perspectives on the criminal justice system.
"BC's Criminal Justice Clinic was the highlight of my law school experience and shaped the direction of my legal career. My passion for defending the poor, unpopular, and powerless began and flourished in the clinic. I not only learned practical legal skills like oral advocacy, negotiation, client-counseling, and discovery and motions practice but more importantly, the clinic taught me what it really means to provide client-centered representation. I learned to meet clients where they were, to not only hear them but to really listen to their desires and goals, and to engage in creative lawyering to develop outcomes that made sense for their lives. My clients benefit from the lawyer that I am today because of what I learned as a BC Defender."
Chiquisha Robinson '05
Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia Staff Attorney
Youth & Family Rights Clinic
The Youth & Family Rights Clinic focuses on advocating for the rights of youth and families when the state involuntarily intervenes into their family life. Students in the clinic have the opportunity to practice individual client representation skills on behalf of youth and adult clients as well as systems change advocacy skills on behalf of organizational clients.
Director
Overview
The Youth & Family Rights Clinic focuses on advocating for the rights of youth and families when the state involuntarily intervenes into their family life. Students in the clinic have the opportunity to practice individual client representation skills on behalf of youth and adult clients as well as systems change advocacy skills on behalf of organizational clients.
Focus
The clinic focuses on individual client representation including litigation at the state administrative level, as well as in the Massachusetts Juvenile and Superior Courts. Each student works on at least one litigation matter and on one community advocacy/policy matter.
Example of Student Work
Students may represent a child in Juvenile Court who has been accused by their school of being “truant” and faces placement in foster care; negotiate with a child’s school team for educational services for a child; draft a complaint and then draft and argue a motion for judgment on the pleadings in Superior Court seeking reversal of a decision of the Department of Children and Families (DCF); develop and conduct Know Your Rights presentations in partnership with a community organization; and research and draft a white paper at the direction of a community organization regarding youth and family rights.
“The BC Law Defenders Clinic really expanded my understanding of the law and gave me the confidence that I could take on new and different legal challenges.”