USD School of Law celebrates 50th anniversary of legal clinics

The school’s milestone invites celebration and reflection

COLIN MULLANEY / ASST. NEWS EDITOR / THE USD VISTA

For 50 years, the USD School of Law has provided free legal services to low-income portions of the population as a means of educating upper-division, graduate-level law students. Through its involvement in experience-based legal clinics, the School of Law has engaged in countless efforts to better the community, as well as provided students quality legal education in a realistic and professional setting. 

In the past few years alone, legal clinics at USD were responsible for helping high school students maintain Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals (DACA) benefits, helping a client recover $20,000 from the State Controller’s office, and helping a client to become a U.S. citizen, among many other achievements.

On Friday Nov. 5, the USD School of Law hosted a reception to celebrate the legal clinics’ 50th anniversary and all the positive changes they have brought about, both in the realm of education and in real-world affairs. The reception was intended to emphasize the success of USD’s legal clinics over the years and the formative role they play in shaping the education of USD’s law students. 

When USD first implemented its legal clinics program in 1971, it was one of the first of its kind, combining both the need to educate and the need to address pressing social issues. Since then, many other schools emulated the program in their own curriculum, and the American Bar Association mandated that law schools across the country require experiential education, like USD’s legal clinics, as a component of the J.D. degree.

In a letter to law school alumni, USD Law School Dean, Robert Schapiro, J.D., wrote about the continued success of the legal clinics in their educational capacity.

“Each year hundreds of our students participate in one of our eleven direct client-service clinics. In aggregate, the students log almost 20,000 hours and resolve more than 300 cases,” Schapiro wrote.

As the students provide these critical services, they learn essential lessons in interviewing, managing cases, advocating effectively, and developing empathetic relationships with clients and other actors in the justice system. The hours are long, but the work is extraordinarily fulfilling. In using their skills to help others in need, our students may find that their own lives are transformed as well.”

Schapiro recognized the positive impact these clinics have on the broader community as well.

“Behind those numbers lie the stories of hundreds of individuals who receive access to justice, whose lives are transformed, because of the tireless dedication of our clinical faculty, adjunct professors, staff attorneys, paralegals, and student interns,” Schapiro stated. Without that commitment, for the vast majority of the clients, the promise of equal justice would not be realized.” 

Nancy Halliday Ely-Raphel graduated from the USD School of Law in 1968. One of two women in her class, she later went on to become the third United States Ambassador to Slovenia. Looking back on her education, Ely-Raphel agreed that legal clinics are an imperative aspect of legal education.  

“I think the legal clinics are the way to go, one of the most important lessons you can learn for practice. The more experience you get going to the court, and the more experience you get with practicing lawyers, I think the better lawyer you’re going to be. I think it’s really important to have these clinics… the more clinics you have, the better the training for the students,” Ely-Raphel stated. 

The legal clinics’ 50th anniversary celebration was one of the first major events hosted by the school of law since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Other events like the fifty-year reunion of the class of 1970, had to be postponed or celebrated virtually. Schapiro expressed his excitement to be celebrating the law school’s successes in-person again.

“In-person alumni events have been on hold for more than a year at USD. We are delighted that the reunions will provide an opportunity for alumni to return to campus and reconnect with each other and their alma mater,” Shapiro said. “In addition to honoring our milestone classes, this year’s reunions symbolize the law school’s coming back together again after a period of separation- it is a true celebration for us all!” 

Each year, USD educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor (J.D.) and graduate law students throughout the United States and around the world. The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest law, and taxation. 

USD School of Law is one of the 84 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates. The law school’s faculty is a group of scholars and teachers with national and international reputations, currently ranked 30th nationally among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact. USD’s School of Law  continues to leave a legacy of excellence.