Northeastern University School of Law
Northeastern University
Northeastern University School of Law
400 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
www.slaw.neu.edu
Law School Pro Bono Programs
Contact Information
Jeffrey Smith Coop Director of External Relations/Co-Director of Public Interest Advising
jef.smith@neu.edu
617-373-4942
Valerie Kapilow
Associate Director of Career Services/Co-Director of Public Interest Advising
v.kapilow@neu.edu
617-373-3337
Bettye Freeman
Assistant Dean, Academic & Student Affairs
b.freeman@neu.edu
617-373-5148
Lois Kanter
Executive Director, Domestic Violence Institute
l.kanter@neu.edu
617-373-8617
Category Type
Public Service Graduation Requirement Program
Description of Program
The Public Interest Requirement was instituted in 1994 with the incoming class. Students may meet the Public Interest Requirement in a variety of ways. These include: successfully completing a full-time public interest co-op comprised of spending 11 weeks and 35 hours per week (385 hours) in a public interest work setting; taking a law school clinic; performing 30 hours of pre-approved legal pro bono work; or doing a public interest independent study. Please note that in 10 years of operating under the requirement, an average of 84% of each graduating class satisfied the requirement through co-op, the most significant time commitment. Eighty-eight percent of the two most recent graduating classes satisfied the requirement by doing a public interest co-op. To satisfy the requirement, all students must receive a written evaluation from their attorney or faculty supervisor.
Location of Program
Stand-alone program - The Public Interest Requirement is overseen by the Public Interest Requirement Committee, a committee consisting of faculty, administrators, and students. The committee is charged with implementing, developing and reviewing program policies and procedures.
Staffing/Management/Oversight
This program is overseen by the Public Interest Requirement Committee, a committee consisting of faculty, administrators, and students. The committee is charged with implementing, developing and reviewing program policies and procedures. Administration of the program is shared. The public interest co-op is facilitated through Northeastern's Cooperative Legal Education Office. The clinical option is facilitated through the Office of Academic and Student Affairs. Any pro bono projects performed to satisfy the Public Interest Requirement must be approved by the Public Interest Requirement Committee. To receive academic credit and satisfy the requirements through an independent study, a student must demonstrate that he/she cannot satisfy the requirement through the three other options. The project must be approved by the Assistant Dean of Academic and Student Affairs and a supervising faculty member.
Funding
Because the public interest requirement involves clinical instructors, other faculty members and Co-op Office staff, portions of their salaries cover the cost of administering the program.
The School provides the use of faculty secretaries, computers and other office equipment and supplies in support of various pro bono projects.
Student Run Pro Bono Groups/Specialized Law Education Projects
Boston Medical Center Project - After completing a three-month training class, students conduct interviews in the emergency room at Boston Medical Center focusing on clients' experience with domestic violence. In addition, students provide referrals for legal and social services.Court Watch - This project tracks the charging practices of the Boston Police looking for patterns of racial differences in charging decisions.
National Lawyers Guild Street Law Clinic Project - Students work with community organizations conducting a variety of educational workshops on Fourth Amendment issues, tenants' rights and workers' rights.
Shelter Legal Services - This is a Boston-wide organization that provides legal services to homeless and near-homeless people. Working under the supervision of an attorney, students interview clients, assess their case and assist their client in resolving their issue. Issues include public housing, child support, welfare assistance, divorce and immigration.
Tax Project - Pofessor Peter Enrich, acting as lead counsel, with extensive assistance from students, is challenging the constitutionality of massive tax breaks given to Daimler-Chrysler by Ohio and the city of Toledo to influence the location of a Jeep assembly plant.
Faculty and Administrative Pro Bono
There is no formal faculty pro bono policy. Faculty are heavily involved in supervising pro bono group projects and are also engaged in their own pro bono activities.
Awards/Recognition
The Northeastern Law Magazine profiles faculty and administrators who engage in pro bono and public interest service. A link to the magazine on-line is: http://www.slaw.neu.edu/magazineIn addition, faculty profiles emphasize public interest and pro bono work. See: http://www.slaw.neu.edu/faculty/faculty.htm
The Public Interest Law Scholars (PILS) are invited to an annual dinner hosted by one of the scholarship's major donors. This dinner brings current PILS scholars and PILS alumni/ae together to celebrate accomplishments, discuss the scholarship progam, and welcome new recipients.
The Outstanding Graduate Student Awards annually recognizes the accomplishments of individual graduate students in the Northeastern community. Awards are given for research, practice-oriented education,and community service at an annual awards presentation program and reception in April.
One Northeastern University School of Law student per year, along with those from the five other area law schools in the area, are recognized at the Northeast branch of the American Corporate Counsel Association's (ACCA) dinner for displaying exemplary ethical conduct in an internship, through a clinic or in some other class situation.
Community Service
The Youth Advocacy Caucus mentors teenagers in state custody at three group homes in the city of Boston. In addition to one-on-one mentoring, the law students provide street law clinics of various kinds and provide speakers and discussions for the teenagers.
Law School Public Interest Programs
Back to top
Contact Information
Jeffrey SmithCoop Director of External Relations/Co-Director of Public Interest Advising
jef.smith@neu.edu
617-373-4942
Coop Office
Valerie Kapilow
Associate Director of Career Services/Co-Director of Public Interest Advising
v.kapilow@neu.edu
617-373-3337
Career Services Office
Certificate/Curriculum Programs
Northeastern School of Law is a national leader, and an intellectual center, in public interest law and social justice. At Northeastern, we believe that every lawyer must understand the role of law in society and the ways in which law can be used to promote the public good. Our curriculum is designed to nurture and expand every student's understanding of the role that law plays in society - and the ways that law can promote justice. Thus, while other law schools may permit students to pursue public interest law, we encourage every student to embrace the law as a vehicle for positive good in society. In addition, we offer the student pursuing public interest law a wide range of courses that focus on societal issues. In the upper level, we offer many specialized courses that focus on public interest issues, such as Welfare Law, Public Health Law, a wide selection of courses in labor/employment law and civil rights, and a course in the structure and taxation of nonprofit organizations.
Advocacy Concentration Program
Elder Law Concentration Program
Higher Education Law & Policy concentration
Public Interest Centers
Public Health Advocacy Institute - This institute is a research, policy and advocacy organization dedicated to protecting and preserving the public health. The Institute is a collaborative project between Northeastern University School of Law and Tufts University School of Medicine. The Institute works in the law to promote public health issues and methods in legal analysis; in legal education to introduce population-based legal analysis to the study of law; in public health practice to introduce legal dimensions of public health solutions and, in public health education to introduce legal dimensions of public health problems. Sources of outside funding include the Bauman and Santos Foundations. Tobacco Products Liability Project/Tobacco Control Resource Center - The TCRC is a national research clearinghouse that provides tobacco policy information to federal, state and local officials throughout the country. The TPLP, a division of TCRC, works to establish the legal responsibility of the tobacco industry for tobacco-induced disease, death and disability. Sources of outside funding include: The American Cancer Society, U.S. Department of Justice, National Cancer Institute, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Legacy Foundation. For more information, contact Professor Richard A. Daynard, President, 617/373-2026.
Domestic Violence Institute - This Institute is an education, service and research organization dedicated to combating partner abuse. The Institute provides legal advocacy services to battered women, trains law students and other professionals to meet the unique challenges of working with battered clients, and fosters interdisciplinary programs to make this system work for women seeking assistance. Sources of outside funding include Greater Boston Legal Services and the Boston Police Department. For more information, contact Professor Lois H. Kanter, Executive Director, 617/373-8617.
Institute on Race and Justice - At the forefront of the national dialogue about race and social policy, the Institute on Race and Justice provides rigorous and objective information and resources that are used by communities to make policy changes to advance the cause of racial justice. Racial equality is closely tied to urban issues; in urban settings, members of different races struggle for equal treatment in many areas. The institute has chosen to primarily focus on two social institutions, criminal justice and education, because these are areas in which communities have repeatedly expressed concern about racial equality. To that end, the institute focuses on understanding the connections among individual bias, institutional policies and disparate treatment within these two institutions. In contrast to the traditional legal model, the Institute on Race and Justice engages in research and scholarship that provides policymakers, practitioners and urban stakeholders with information and resources to understand and interpret questions regarding racial justice. The institute uses a multidisciplinary approach to examine the interaction between individual and systemic racial bias in institutions such as courts, law enforcement and schools.
http://www.racialprofilinganalysis.neu.edu/
Partnering for Prevention and Community Safety Initiative - The Partnering for Prevention and Community Safety Initiative (PfP), headed by Professor Deborah Ramirez, worked to identify and help implement promising practices for building relationships between federal, state, and local law enforcement and American Muslim, Arab, and Sikh communities. Such partnerships enhance counterterrorism initiatives, protect communities from hate crimes and hate incidents, and help preserve American civil liberties.
http://www.slaw.neu.edu/clinics/pfp.html
Public Interest Clinics
Certiorari/Criminal Appeals - Working under the direction of Professor Daniel J. Givelber, students have primary responsibility for the analysis, research and writing of a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States seeking review of constitutional and/or federal issues arising in a capital case. The course offers students an opportunity to enhance their analytic, research and written advocacy skills, while at the same time learning about the certiorari process and Supreme Court capital punishment jurisprudence.http://www.slaw.neu.edu/clinics/clinics.html#Certiorari
Criminal Advocacy - Emphasizing preparation at every level of criminal advocacy, this clinic instructs students in the techniques, strategies and decisionmaking processes involved in the handling of "routine" criminal cases. Each student is generally assigned to a three-member team that manages an actual case in a local criminal court. The court assigns the cases to the Criminal Advocacy Clinic and each team's work is closely supervised.
http://www.slaw.neu.edu/clinics/clinics.html#Criminal
Domestic Violence - The Domestic Violence Clinic, part of the Domestic Violence Institute http://www.dvi.neu.edu focuses on violence prevention, restraining order enforcement and criminal intervention in Dorchester District Court, Boston's largest community court. Students interview and counsel clients, and advocate in the courtroom.
Poverty Law and Practice - This clinic represents community-based organizations that seek to give poor people a powerful voice for self-determination. These poor people's organizations empower their members on issues of housing, work and welfare. Organizational goals are pursued through community education, individual and group advocacy.
Clinic students are assigned to represent organizations, their members and individual clients who seek assistance. In addition to community education, students appear before administrative, legislative and judicial decisionmakers on behalf of their clients. Students focus on particular substantive legal areas such as employment, housing and welfare, and learn to make that knowledge available to community organizations. See http://www.slaw.neu.edu/clinics/clinics.html#Poverty
Prisoners' Rights - Under the close supervision of two experienced practitioners, students develop and refine advocacy skills while representing prisoners in Massachusetts. Typically, each student handles both an adversarial proceeding (a disciplinary hearing) and a non-adversarial proceeding (parole-related hearing or classification hearing) from beginning to end. Through this experience, students learn how to properly conduct client/witness interviews and thorough factual investigations, examine and cross-examine witnesses effectively and make persuasive opening and closing statements. Students also learn how to write winning administrative appeals. In addition, the clinic presents a survey of the constitutional law relating to the sentencing process and the rights of prisoners while incarcerated and on parole. See http://www.slaw.neu.edu/clinics/clinics.html#Prisoners
Public Health - In cooperation with the school's Public Health Advocacy Institute http://www.slaw.neu.edu/clinics/publichealth.html and the Tobacco Control Resource Center http://www.tobacco.neu.edu. The Public Health Legal Clinic covers tobacco control issues in depth, while also focusing on the emerging obesity epidemic and issues involving the gun and pharmaceutical industries. It considers the conflict between individual rights and the need to protect the public health.
http://www.slaw.neu.edu/clinics/clinics.html#Public
Externships/Internships
Every law student at Northeastern is required to complete four full-time legal work experiences during the second and third year of law school ("co-op" as we call them) in order to graduate. Each co-op lasts 11 weeks. We operate year round on a quarterly system. Students during their upper-level years alternate every three months between doing full-time co-ops and attending classes. In a given Northeastern year, each student is expected to successfully complete two full-time co-ops.
Classes with a Public Service Component
Children's Law - Professor Mary O'Connell allows students, in lieu of a final exam, to conduct a research project for a local children's rights advocacy organization.Legal Skills in Social Context (LSSC) - Legal Skills in Social Context (LSSC)- formerly Law, Culture, and Difference - is a required first year course, which delivers fundamental research and writing training while it challenges participants' values and helps sensitize them to the formidable task the legal system faces in addressing societal difference. The course also provides students with the opportunity to develop team lawyering skills while assisting community organizations that are attempting to affect social change. During the second semester of the first year, all first year students are assigned to a "law office" and participate in a closely supervised clinical experience representing and assisting a non-profit community based organization in solving a societal problem involving issues of diversity and law. The participating organizations, primarily located in the Greater Boston area, compete for an opportunity to participate in the LSSC Program. Each law office team is responsible for producing a publishable report detailing its findings with extensive legal and anecdotal field research. In addition, each of the law offices presents a highly creative, often multi-media based, oral presentation to client organizations and the entire first year class.
Public Interest Journals
Northeastern Law Magazine
Public Interest Career Assistance
The Office of Career Services offers a "core curriculum" of public interest career programs including the Public Interest Job Search Process, Fellowship Information Session and Searching for Positions in Government. In addition, the office frequently offers a variety of special programs focusing on public interest topics including labor and employment law, immigration, child advocacy, international human rights, criminal defense, environmental law and public interest in the private sector. The Office also holds fellowship programs at which program officers from national public interest fellowship programs speak as well as federal government honors program information sessions.In addition to career services programs, the office has in-house publications related to searching for public interest/government positions which can be found on the career services website under "office publications" at http://www.slaw.neu.edu/career/students2.html.
The Office of Cooperative Legal Education also conducts an annual informational session dealing exclusively with special summer public interest fellowship programs, and provides individual counseling to students applying for such fellowships. The Office further provides one on one counseling services to students regarding the public interest legal internship opportunities available through the required Cooperative Legal Education Program.
Two informational sessions rgarding the law school's loan relief assistance program are also conducted annually.
The Massachusetts Law School Consortium hosts two Government/Public Interest Recruitment Programs each year in the fall and winter. Students from the seven ABA-accredited Massachusetts law schools interview with employers for summer and post-graduate public service positions. See http://www.maconsortium.org/
Loan Repayment Assistance Programs (LRAP)
The annual program revenue, which for the 2006 Program year was $230,000, comes from a variety of funding sources including law school budget allocation; gifts from alumni/ae as well as law firms and corporations; on-campus recruitment donations; and fund-generated interest.See http://www.slaw.neu.edu/finan/ldf.htm
Post-Graduate Fellowships/Awards
Law School Funded:
Graduate Student Funded:
Other Funding Sources:
The Wendy Parmet Fellowship is awarded annually to one or more graduates of Northeastern University School of Law who demonstrate a strong commitment to public interest law. The Fellowship is named in honor of Wendy Parmet, a professor at NUSL and a leading health law scholar, as well as a founding member of HLA's Board. Parmet Fellows spend a year as staff attorneys at HLA, representing clients and advocating in the broader legal and policy arena for expanded and equitable health care access. http://www.hla-inc.org/
The Domestic Violence Institute Fellow organizes and oversees law students from area schools in an interviewing project at the Boston Medical Center seeking to understand the impact of violence in women's lives and where appropriate to refer them for services. The Fellow also participates in the education and supervision of students working at the Dorchester DV Court.
Term Time Fellowships/Scholarships
Law School Funded:
During the most recent fiscal year, Northeastern awarded almost $530,000 in stipend assistance to support students undertaking public interest co-ops. The money came from a variety of sources including law school budget, federal work-study, and gifts from individuals, foundations and firms.
Graduate Student Funded:
Other Funding Sources:
Public Interest Law Scholarship Program - The Public Interest Law Scholarship is a three-quarter tuition scholarship, renewable each year as long as the scholar remains in good academic standing. It is the most generous and prestigious scholarship offered by the law school and recipients are among our strongest students. Not only do recipients have academic profiles that boast strong scores and grades, they also have very strong backgrounds in fields that relate to social justice and public service. Many have worked for years in areas such as human rights, immigration, social work, child advocacy, prison reform, politics and welfare reform. This program was launched in 1999 by generous graduates and friends who believed that the mission of the law school naturally led to the need for such a scholarship.
Public interest law scholars are required to participate and play a leadership role in a variety of public interest activities at the law school. Specifically, each scholar must successfully complete at least two full-time public interest/service internships. Additionally, each scholar is expected to become involved in a faculty public interest research project, participate in one of the school's public interest organizations and/or plan public service projects in the greater Boston area.
Summer Fellowships
Law School Funded:
Graduate Student Funded:
Other Funding Sources:
During the most recent fiscal year, Northeastern awarded almost $530,000 in stipend assistance to support students undertaking public interest co-ops. The money came from a variety of sources including law school budget, federal work-study, and gifts from individuals, foundations and firms.In addition, $13,400 in student generated funds were used to support students doing public interest legal internships.
Extracurricular and Co-Curricular Programs
School of Law Visions and Ideals Award - Julius Chambers, legendary civil rights attorney and advocate, delivered the 2005 Commencement Address. We awarded to Mr. Chambers the first Northeastern University School of Law Visions and Ideals award, to be awarded to an individual who exemplifies the melding of theory and practice in service of social justice ideals.Teach In - Committee on the Solomon Amendment
Sudan Forum - Prisoners' Rights Luncheon
Consultation: Program for Human Rights and the Global Economy - Realizing Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: Communities, Courts and the Academy.
http://www.slaw.neu.edu/clinics/rights_esc2005.html
The Domestic Violence Institute (DVI) - In the fall and winter, the Institute staff sponsor seminars and events to familiarize students with domestic violence issues in general and local abuse prevention initiatives in particular.
The Valerie Gordon Human Rights Lecture - "Back in the Day' is Today: The Fight for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Deep South" - Jaribu Hill, Executive Director and founder of the Mississippi Workers' Center for Human Rights. This is an annual event that brings a distinguished human rights scholar or activist to the Law School for a lecture and reception. Lecturers have included Randall Robinson, founder of TransAfrica, Hon. Albert Sacks of the Supreme Court of South Africa and Professor Gerard Quinn, holder of the main statutory chair in law at the National University of Ireland, Galway. The lecture was founded in honor of a '93 graduate of the law school, a human rights activist who tragically passed away at the beginning of her career.
NU Law Forum - The Northeastern Law Forum is a quarterly speaker series that focuses on legal issues of contemporary concern. The forum provides a space for open dialogue on contested social issues of interest to students, faculty and graduates.
Public Health Advocacy Institute Annual Conference - Legal Approaches to the Obesity Epidemic. Three day conference.
JD/MPH Program Speaker Series - "Forensic Epidemiology: The Intersection Between Public Health and Criminal Investigation."
Daynard Public Interest Visiting Fellows Program - The Daynard Program brings two distinguished practitioners of public interest law to the Northeastern campus each academic year for a three-day visit. The fellows, nationally recognized public interest leaders, serve as role models for students, demonstrating how legal skills can be used effectively and creatively to make the world a better place. The Daynard Fellows each deliver an address that focuses on the strategic use of law to promote public interest goals, participate in classes, consult about professional opportunities for students and graduates, and meet individually with interested faculty, administrators and students.
Paths to Public Interest Faculty Lunch Series - The Paths to Public Interest Faculty Lunch Series is sponsored by the Public Interest Law Scholars and features a different faculty member each quarter. This forum is a way for faculty to speak informally with students about his/her career path, academic focus and scholarly work,legal interests and goals/aspirations.
Student Public Interest Groups
Cooperative Income Sharing ProgramNational Lawyers Guild
Queer Caucus
Shelter Legal Services
Student Global AIDS Campaign
