Clinical Program

The clinical work at St. Mary’s consists of a classroom component and a casework component. The classroom segment includes lectures, discussions, group exercises and simulations. In the classroom, student attorneys learn the substantive law and lawyering skills necessary for the effective and ethical handling of the cases.

For their individual cases, student attorneys must commit to regular office hours and legal outreach, in addition to their classroom time. During the academic year, each clinic is one semester long and six credit hours. Second semester or summer options are sometimes available for three or four credits.

The Consumer Protection Clinic and Family Law Clinic are experiential, practice-based courses for credit, which combine academic rigor with actual experience. We are a working law office where student attorneys represent income-qualified clients in legal matters, with close supervision by law faculty.

The Civil Justice Clinics offer an introduction to one or more areas of civil practice, as well as essential lawyering skills such as interviewing and counseling, case planning, document drafting, and discovery.

In addition to work on real cases, the Civil Justice Clinic includes a classroom component covering substantive law and lawyering skills. The classroom component includes lectures, discussions, group exercises, and simulations to help students prepare for legal practice.

The Civil Justice Clinics are open to second- and third-year law students, with preference given to those students with 45 or more credit hours [the credit hour requirement for a Texas Temporary Trial Card for Qualified Law Students, (“Student Bar Card”)].

Family Law

In the family law practice area, student attorneys represent clients in state court with simple divorces (no children, no property), adoptions, and name changes.  Student attorneys also serve, by court appointment only, as Amicus Attorneys in Title IV-D courts.  Students in the Family Law practice area will also draft simple wills and ancillary documents as well as represent clients with probate matters before the Bexar County Probate Courts.

Faculty: Clinical Professor of Law Dayla S. Pepi

Consumer Protection

The consumer protection practice area focuses on economic justice for low-income homeowners. Student attorneys protect clients from abusive and unfair sales practices, including fraudulent home sales and foreclosures in state and federal court. Student attorneys also represent clients in transactional real estate matters, in order to secure home equity and to promote access to disaster and repair assistance programs.

Faculty: Clinical Professor of Law Genevieve Hébert Fajardo

The Criminal Justice Clinic provides students who enroll in the for-credit course with the opportunity to gain substantive knowledge and practical skills by representing income-qualified clients – juveniles and adults – who are charged with criminal offenses ranging from misdemeanors to capital offenses.

Some of the types of cases students handle include:

• driving while intoxicated
• theft
• assault
• possession of controlled substances, and
• trespassing

Students represent individuals in jury trials, contested motions, and plea negotiations. Students also participate in appellate brief writing and oral arguments before the Fourth Court of Appeals, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and even the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Within the Criminal Justice Clinic students have an opportunity to challenge wrongful convictions through the writ of habeas corpus process.

A Texas Temporary Trial Card for Qualified Law Students (“Student Bar Card”) is necessary to participate in the representation of clients in court in Texas. Students must have completed at least 45 hours of legal study to be eligible for a Student Bar Card, which is required for enrollment in the Criminal Justice Clinic.

The clinic experience includes weekly classes on Texas criminal procedure, the rules of evidence, professional responsibility, as well as practical advice. Students are required to participate in weekly courtroom simulations to prepare for trial. For example, students will prepare and deliver opening statements and closing arguments and cross-examine witnesses in a mock setting to learn and improve advocacy skills.

The Immigration and Human Rights Clinic introduces students to the practice of law through the supervised representation of income-qualified immigrants and refugees in proceedings before Immigration Courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and federal courts.

This for-credit course is open to second- and third-year students who learn to:

• interview and counsel clients
• develop case strategy
• prepare applications
• gather and organize evidence
• draft motions and briefs, and
• appear on behalf of their clients before the agency and courts

The clinic caseload includes a variety of immigration and nationality issues, including the defense of immigrants in removal proceedings, applications for asylum, adjustment of status, claims to U.S. citizenship and benefits available to crime victims.

In addition, students are expected to participate in broader community service, which most recently has involved working with pro bono agencies assisting families detained in Karnes City and Dilley, Texas. It is strongly recommended that students enrolled in the clinic have completed or be concurrently taking the Immigration Law course.

The classroom component of the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic course includes a practice-oriented examination of complex immigration law and specially tailored exercises and simulations designed to instill the basics of good legal practice.

The classwork focuses on issues regularly encountered in the clinic’s case work, allowing students an opportunity to analyze the legal and social impediments to their cases, as well as a chance to develop and reflect on the strategic choices they make.

Faculty:
Clinical Professor of Law Erica Schommer