Clinical Programs
At the UNC School of Law, clinical legal educational provides students the opportunity to learn legal theory and legal practice while providing much needed legal assistance to under-represented individuals and organizations. Students represent clients with a wide range of legal problems and handle litigation, transactional, and policy matters from beginning to end. The clinical offerings are sufficiently broad to allow students to work in a variety of legal areas and enhance a number of skills: civil rights, consumer, criminal defense, community development, domestic violence, housing, human rights, family, immigration, and policy work with legislators and NGOs [more about clinical programs...].
To find out how we get our cases, please select a clinic above.
For more information about the School of Law's clinical programs, contact Deborah Weissman, professor of law and director of clinical programs.
Registration Forms For Externship and Clincal Programs for the 2008-2009 Academic Year:
Testimonial for Juvenile Justice Clinic
My year-long work as a clinic student was by far the most important, substantive and procedural learning experience of my law school career. As a student in the Criminal Clinic I had the opportunity to engage in real lawyering work - research, client interviews, witness interviews, court/hearing preparations and court appearances. I can't imagine going into the real world without having had such an experience. Not only was I able to gain valuable and tangible skill sets that have prepared me to enter the legal profession, but I was able to provide much needed legal services to indigent juveniles.
Working with the faculty who teach in the clinic was an excellent way to begin to explore the complexities of handling cases from their inception to their end. It also provided a means by which I could work through legal theories, statutory interpretations, and basic client interactions. While I had autonomy and the ability to learn and prepare for the cases on my own, I knew that my work would be supervised and that I would receive invaluable feedback from the clinic professors. My professors served as mentors, teachers, and models of the high standards to which attorneys should hold themselves.
I am very much looking forward to entering the legal profession and I am grateful for the opportunities that the Criminal Clinic has provided to me.
- Lisa Weissman-Ward, Carolina Law Student