Civil Practice Clinic

The Civil Practice Clinic is offered as a full-year graded clinical course during the Fall and Spring semesters. Participants earn four credit hours per semester and earn a total of eight credit hours for the year. Participants are limited to third year law students. A maximum of 16 students (8 students per section) are selected for the Civil Practice Clinic each semester.

The clinic provides a community service by helping low-income clients who would otherwise lack access to legal services. Students are given the responsibility to represent clients with legal problems in a range of areas including: family law, public benefits, civil rights, consumer and estate planning. To the extent possible, assigned caseloads will reflect areas of interest to participating students.

The Civil Clinic undertakes a limited number of cases, selected in close consultation with and through referral from Legal Aid of Northwest Texas. With a small caseload, students will have the opportunity to thoroughly investigate and prepare client matters entrusted to them, and they will be able to make independent judgments in a supervised clinical setting. Examinations of the strategic decisions made and advocacy skills utilized promote the professional development of the student as an effective and ethical legal practitioner.

Participating students handle a number of phases of client representation, which may include, but are not limited to:

• Developing case strategy
• Drafting pleadings and legal documents
• Interviewing and counseling clients
• Investigating facts
• Negotiating with parties and counsel
• Representing clients in court and before administrative agencies

The Civil Practice Clinic was initiated in the Fall semester of 2001 and consists of two sections supervised by Professors Larry Spain, who joined the faculty after 18 years as the clinical program director at the University of North Dakota School of Law, and Wendy Tolson Ross, who joined the faculty in 2006 after teaching in the clinical program at St. Mary's University School of Law for six years.

Under the supervision of Professors Spain and Ross, the Civil Practice Clinic recently initiated a Night Divorce Project in cooperation with the Lubbock County Courts and Legal Aid of Northwest Texas to address concerns about the lack of access to the courts for low-income individuals seeking a divorce. Students in the clinical program participate in a monthly evening clinic in which they interview individuals screened by Legal Aid of Northwest Texas, and prepare and file their Petitions for Divorce. When the cases are ready for a final hearing, they are heard in the evening in the Texas Tech School of Law courtroom, which is more convenient for clients who are often unable to take time off from work.

Prerequisites

• The Civil Practice Clinic is open to third year law students only
• Recommended prerequisite courses: Interviewing and Counseling and/or Professional Responsibility
• Students must be eligible for Student Bar Card as a Qualified Law Student
• Students must be available for clinic orientation on the day before classes begin