Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Lisa Johnson-Firth

J.D. Practicum 1075 | 4 credit hours

Shifting migration patterns and societal forces have caused more women to leave their home countries and attempt to enter the United States. While a woman may flee her home country for the same reasons as a man, research shows that refugee women also flee their countries for gender-related reasons. In many countries, women face persecution and violence just for being women. This includes the use of rape as a weapon of war, domestic violence, so-called honor crimes, forced marriage, widow rituals, one child policies, forced sterilization policies, and female genital mutilation. In this practicum class, students will study and learn through experience about the societal forces causing the forced migration of women and how U.S. laws and policies address the immigration status of these female immigrants. We will focus on forms of relief that, while available to both men and women, are almost exclusively accessed by women to obtain legal status in the United States. Specifically, we will focus on: Asylum (specifically the gender-based prong of “membership in a particular social group”), the Violence against Women Act (for abused women who are or were married to U.S. citizens), U Visas (for victims of crime), and T Visas (for victims of trafficking). Students will conduct intakes of women fleeing their countries because of gender-based violence and draft memos for the nonprofit organization who may take on representation of the clients. Students will also work directly with attorneys at local legal services agencies who are representing female survivors of gender-based harm seeking legal status in the U.S.

Prerequisites: Students must complete the required first-year program prior to enrolling in this course (part-time and interdivisional transfer students may enroll prior to completing Criminal Justice, Property, or their first-year elective).

Students may not concurrently enroll in this practicum and an externship or a clinic (except Street Law) or another practicum course.

Students who wish to receive credit for the Externship Seminar and a practicum course that has the same field placement may do so only if: (1) the practicum course is taken in a semester following the Externship Seminar; and (2) the student receives permission from the Assistant or the Associate Dean for Clinical Programs. To receive such permission, the student must explain in writing how the practicum course field work would serve substantially different learning goals than did their externship field placement.

THIS IS A PRACTICUM COURSE.

This is a 4 credit course. 2 credits will be awarded for the 2-hour weekly seminar and 2 credits for approximately 10 hours of supervised work per week, for a minimum of 11 weeks, to be scheduled with the faculty. The seminar portion will be graded. The 2 credits of supervised work is mandatory pass/fail and counts toward the 7 credit pass/fail limit. Students will be allowed to take another course pass/fail in the same semester as the supervised work.

Students who enroll in this course will be automatically enrolled in both the seminar and practicum components and may not take either component separately. A student wishing to withdraw from the course will be withdrawn from both the seminar and field work components.