Criminalized Survivor, Detention, and Justice Clinic

The Criminalized Survivor, Detention, and Justice Clinic (CSDJC) is a 1 or 2-semester clinic in which students will focus on avenues of relief for individuals who have been imprisoned for killing their abusers, or who have committed other felonies arising out of their circumstances as abused persons. Most of these incarcerated persons are women who were unable to introduce evidence of their abuse at trial or at sentencing. Students will have opportunities to develop appellate law-related skills, practice competencies related to working with prosecutors, and learn how best to work with and on behalf of incarcerated adults. Students will seek sentencing mitigation, clemency, and parole and will engage in legislative and policy changes to improve outcomes for victim/offenders. Students will examine ways to use human rights norms in international and regional settings.

Enrollment Options and Credit Hours

• Full year (fall and spring semester) – 4 credit hours per semester
• Fall semester only – 4 credit hours
• Spring semester only – 4 credit hours

Skills Learned

• Client centered, trauma-informed, and culturally appropriate interviewing
• Factual investigation
• Case theory and case planning
• Counseling
• Negotiation
• Legal research and application of facts to law
• International human rights law; international and regional forums where they can be applied on behalf of clients
• Review case files, discovery
• Written advocacy
• Drafting pleadings
• Drafting policy papers
• Drafting proposed legislation
• Oral advocacy
• Working with expert witnesses
• Incorporating interdisciplinary fields of knowledge
• Ethical representation
• Collaboration
• Lawyering across cultural divides
• Identifying structural contexts affecting law and legal problems/critical thinking skills
• Case file management

Requirements

• Pre- or Co-requisite courses: Gender Violence, the Law, and the Criminalized Survivor (RWE)

Faculty

Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor of Law
(919) 962-5108 | weissman@email.unc.edu