Greater los angeles consortium on externships

In reality, the indigent innocent person often suffers greatly from ill-conceived, belated and grossly inadequate investigations due to prejudice, shortcuts or simple lack of attorney time. Innocence Matters tackles this reality through a variety of investigation programs and resources through which we aim to:. Prevent wrongful convictions by providing future and current lawyers essential experiential training that will enable them to objectively and thoroughly investigate and advocate claims of innocence, and by empowering the innocent with proactive tools to build a stronger working relationship with their lawyers while creating a record of innocence.

A key place to instill a genuine understanding of best practices to promote justice is law school. However, though law schools prepare students to research, write and develop a theory of the case, the crucial first steps of evaluating the credibility and reliability of the evidence presented in police reports in support of a theory of guilt are skills not typically covered in the law school curriculum.

Skillful case theory development in the absence of careful examination of the accuracy and integrity of the facts upon which it is based increases the likelihood of wrongful convictions.

We accept a very small number of post-conviction cases where we assume the role of the lead lawyer. In order to qualify, the accused must meet each criterion listed below:. Those outside of CA are encouraged to review our links to other projects in your jurisdiction. It offers advanced structural features such as multiple columns, inline icons and text, inline modules and positions, custom column widths, item distribution and menu offset.

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Susan Mellen is Free! October 10, Read More. As much as is practical, students should prepare the final documents which will be presented to the court, agency, client or opposition. Observation assignments, such as going to court or meeting with a client, should be encouraged, especially in conjunction with work assignments. Students should also be encouraged to participate in staff meetings, presentations to clients, and other opportunities for oral advocacy. The supervising attorney must meet with the student in conjunction with each written assignment the student selects for submission to the Faculty Field Placement Director to satisfy the writing requirement.

The meeting is for the purpose of evaluation of the student's performance on the writing assignment, to suggest areas of excellence, or areas for further improvement in writing or research skills.

The supervising attorney must prepare a written evaluation of each student writing assignment submitted to the school during the semester, and submit the critique with the student submission. At the end of the semester, the supervising attorney must prepare a written evaluation of the extern and submit it to the law school. A form for this evaluation will be provided by the law school.

It is important that the evaluation is accurate and completed and returned promptly. The supervising attorney must be available to establish a working relationship with the Law School supervising faculty member.

The supervising attorney must make the work site available for site inspections by the supervising Law School faculty member as requested. The supervising attorney must promptly communicate with the supervising Law School faculty member as soon as practicable should problems arise. Agencies or attorneys who fail to comply with these designated responsibilities on a repeated basis will be discontinued for student placement.

The Law School has several externship field placement programs all of which are administered, implemented and supervised by law school faculty: The off campus field placement program in judicial chambers, government agencies and public interest law firms; Placements in entertainment companies and law offices as a field component of the Entertainment Law Practicum; Placements in private law firms Semester in Practice and the Private Law Firm Placement Program ; Field placements in public interest firms after a semester of classroom instruction Civil Rights Litigation Program ; Field placements in public interest immigration firms after a semester of classroom instruction Immigrant Justice Program and Field placements in the Office of the District Attorney after a semester of classroom instruction Hobbs DA Program.

All externs in all programs attend mandatory training and orientation meetings with supervising faculty to discuss ethics, professionalism and course requirements with students. Externship enrollment numbers are set according to limitations established by the faculty from time to time in order to ensure adequate full-time faculty supervision of or field placement externs.

All field placement programs are reviewed and evaluated periodically by Deans and faculty. All field placement students must complete reporting requirements to receive a grade of "pass.

Documented hours and tasks must be verified by the supervising attorney. Externs must submit samples of written work prepared during the externship which demonstrates legal research, legal writing and analysis, and the application of legal principles.

Written work must be critiqued in writing by supervisors. Faculty supervisors engage all externs on a regular basis throughout the semester in a critical evaluation of the student's performance through mandatory classroom meetings, informal discussions, careful review of written work, activity journaling, guided reflection assignments and telephone and e-mail contact.

Field instructors are engaged regularly as well, through telephone contact, site visits, evaluation through a comprehensive SoCalEx supervisor data base, evaluation at regular SoCalEx meetings, visits on campus for extern recruitment, and visits on campus for recognition for outstanding supervision and participation.

All off-campus field supervisors receive a copy of jointly adopted by all SoCalEx member schools field supervision standards each time a student in placed under supervision. Irvine Shool of Law. The primary purpose was to develop joint standards for the field supervision of externs by field supervisors, judicial clerks and research attorneys.

The GLACE Field Supervision Manual has received national attention and a version of it has been adopted by many law schools throughout the country with off-campus externship programs.