Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professors John Copacino and Vida Johnson

J.D. Clinic 512 | 14 credit hours (year long)

The Criminal Justice Clinic is a full-year program providing students in their final year of law school with an opportunity for intensive study and actual experience in criminal practice. There are two two-hour seminars weekly, on criminal law, criminal procedure, trial skills training, ethics, interviewing and counseling, and other aspects of client representation. The students also engage in the closely supervised practice of law by representing defendants charged with misdemeanor offenses in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Case loads are light and trial work is closely supervised by a professor or teaching fellows to maximize educational benefits.

Throughout the year, students also provide legal counsel to prisoners in local detention and correctional centers and represent inmates at parole grant and parole revocation hearings. Participation: approximately 30 students.

The prerequisites for this clinic are those required by the D.C. student practice rule (the completion of 41 credits, including Criminal Justice, Civil Procedure, and Evidence, by the time clinic classes begin).

See clinic course description in the Online Curriculum Guide or the "Clinic Enrollment Policies" in the Bulletin.

A student may only enroll in Advanced Evidence: Trial Skills; Civil Litigation Practice; Patent Trial Practice; Trial Practice and Applied Evidence; Trial Practice: Working with Expert Witnesses; or any section of Trial Practice during a semester prior to enrolling for credit in the Center for Applied Legal Studies, Community Justice Project, Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy, Criminal Justice, Domestic Violence, Juvenile Justice, or Law Stu¬dents in Court Clinics. Students may not take Advanced Evidence: Trial Skills; Civil Litigation Practice; Patent Trial Practice; Trial Practice and Applied Evidence; Trial Practice: Working with Expert Witnesses; or any section of Trial Practice during the same semester or a subsequent semester in which they enroll in the Center for Applied Legal Studies, Community Justice Project, Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy, Criminal Justice, Domestic Violence, Juvenile Justice, or Law Stu¬dents in Court Clinics. Students may not concurrently enroll in this clinic and an externship or a practicum course.