Civil Legal Assistance Clinic

Registration & Requirements

Registration for the Civil Legal Assistance Clinic is limited to third-year students. A lottery registration meeting for Externship and Clinical Programs is held approximately one month into the spring semester of your 2nd year. Notices are posted throughout the Law School and emailed to the 2nd year student listserv. After the lottery registration meeting, students are given an opportunity to register for their program preferences online.

Please note: Students may not enroll in any externship programs while enrolled in the Civil Clinic.

Registration Requirements include:

• Civil Legal Assistance Clinic -- Year-long, 4 credits each semester, pass/fail.
• Evidence is a prerequisite and must be taken prior to the fall semester of your 3rd year.
• Trial Advocacy is a pre- or co-requisite and must be taken prior to or during the fall semester of your 3rd year.
• Civil Lawyering Process -- Fall, 3 credits, graded. Must be taken concurrently with the first semester of the clinic. This companion course addresses, in a lecture and simulation format, substantive and procedural issues that arise in clinic cases, as well as related questions of strategy and ethics.
• All students enrolled in the the clinic must attend the mandatory Civil Clinic Intensive Weekend held early in the fall semester.

About the Clinic

The Civil Legal Assistance Clinic is a two-semester clinic in which third-year students represent clients in various civil matters related to employment, housing, consumer issues, and other areas of civil rights and poverty law. More

How We Get Cases

We accept cases referred by offices of the Legal Aid of North Carolina that serve Alamance, Durham and Orange counties. We also accept referrals from and collaborate on cases with the UNC Center for Civil Rights, the UNC Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, the North Carolina Justice Center, Disability Rights North Carolina, and other national, statewide, and grassroots partners. Faculty supervisors assign cases to students.