Innovation at Brooklyn Law School

One of my colleagues forwarded me this feature from the Huffington Post. It discusses an innovative clinic at Brooklyn Law School that "represents Internet, new media, communications and other tech entrepreneurs and innovators on both business and policy advocacy." This description comes from the homepage of the Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy Clinic, better known as BLIP. The Huffington Post puts it even more succinctly: the goal of BLIP is to train the "lawyer 2.0 for the digital era." The clinic is the brainchild of Professor Jonathan Askin, who is the son of a former professor of mine at Rutgers Law School - Newark. Professor Frank Askin and his wife, Marilyn, also an attorney, recently gave a large gift to Rutgers for the purpose of creating an endowment to support the clinical programs. A nice photograph of the three Askins appears in the press release announcing the gift.

BLIP is large by the standards of clinical legal education--it has twenty students who are, according to the Huffington Post, "deployed into real legal work for clients facing tricky issues ranging from drafting privacy policy, to incorporation, to wider policy related questions. And as the startups they work grow into full-fledged companies, other benefits present themselves as well." Some of the pro bono clients anticipate eventual hiring of in-house counsel from the students with whom they worked at BLIP. This clinic is a great idea for law schools serious about graduating practice-ready attorneys ready to work in the twenty-first century.

Setback for Law School Clinics

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting the unanimous decision of a three-judge panel of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, that "has denied the legal clinics of that state's public law schools immunity from its open-records law, exposing them to new document requests that could greatly complicate their work." The defendants in the case were Rutgers University and the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic, part of the law school's well-regarded clinical program. The suit was brought by a "real-estate developer [Sussex Commons Associates] whose plans to build an outlet mall were successfully opposed by a citizens' group represented by the clinic." The attorneys for the developer "are seeking documents that .. will show that the owner of two existing outlet malls conspired with the citizens' groups and the clinic to thwart Sussex Commons's mall plans." At issue was New Jersey's Open Public Records Act, 47 N.J.S.A. 1A-1-1A-13, to which, according to the court, the legal clinics are subject as public institutions. Clinicians worry that short-staffed law school clinics will be drowned by discovery requests from law firms; most clinics do not have the resources to take on such requests, and having to comply with open-records laws might well result in clinics refusing to take on certain clients or cases. It sounds to me that New Jersey's law needs to be amended to make it clear that it is not meant to apply to the legal clinics at the state's two public law schools. It's hard to tell if that is feasible in today's political climate.

Clinic Triumphs

Law school clinics have come under criticism lately, so it is heartening to read about a clinic that has helped to do justice in a case that dated back to the civil rights era. An article in today's Boston Globe highlights the work of Northeastern University Law School's Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project. Students working under the direction of Professor Margaret A. Burnham helped bring about a settlement of a "federal lawsuit that had accused Franklin County [Mississippi] law enforcement officials of assisting Klansmen in the kidnapping, torture, and murder" of two African American teenagers who were hitchhiking at the time they were abducted in 1964. Professor "Burnham and about 15 law students spent roughly 2 1/2 years ... combing through thousands of pages of old FBI files and police reports, interviewing dozens of witnesses in Mississippi, and researching the history of racial bias by law enforcement in the county." The suit was settled out of court and the terms are confidential; money was paid to the victims' surviving family members, although officials continue to deny that the county in any way contributed to the horrific murders. Click here to hear Professor Burnham discuss the case on NPR's All Things Considered or to read a transcript.