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Students at the Penn Law School participate in a clinic where they get the opportunity to work on real cases. Credit: Aaron Campbell , Aaron Campbell

For both its clients and the law students who work there, Penn Law School’s Gittis Center for Clinical Legal Studies is more than just a building on Sansom Street — it’s Penn Law’s very own “law firm.”

‘Teaching law firm’

“Our model here is that students are the frontline lawyer,” practice professor of law and Director of Legal Clinics Louis Rulli said.

The center — which has been in operation for more than three decades — is composed of nine different clinics that teach subjects ranging from appellate work, litigation and immigration claims to copyright, child advocacy and mediation.

Each of the clinics is composed of two components — a small seminar for the enrolled students and the practice, or fieldwork, portion of the course.

In the seminars, professors hold simulations and review court strategies and case law relating to the subject of their clinic and the cases that the students are handling. In the practice portion, students spend time working as the “primary legal advocates” for their clients.

As the recognized attorneys on their clients’ cases, students perform tasks such as interacting with opposing parties, drafting briefs to submit to the court, engaging in negotiations and even going to court to represent their client, if the case requires it.

“Unlike an externship, where you are just watching things happen, [clinics] are a good combination of having your own client and being in a reflective setting,” Cynthia Dahl, director of the Detkin Intellectual Property and Technology Legal Clinic, said.

Community action

Beyond teaching students the practical aspects of being an attorney, one of the main purposes of the clinics is to serve the community, Rulli said. All of the clinic’s cases are handled pro bono, meaning that clients do not have to pay legal fees for their services.

For both the IP and Entrepreneurship Legal clinics, this means working with local businesses and other divisions of the University.

According to UPstart Director Michael Poisel, the partnership between the IP Clinic — which accepted its first class this January — and Penn’s Center for Technology Transfer involves working with faculty members who are trying to start a new company through CTT’s UPstart program.

“A part of the process [of starting a company] involves how to protect intellectual property,” Poisel explained. One of the ways in which the IP clinic is involved in doing that is by working with professors to determine how their laboratory research can best be made into a patent that meets the needs of their company, he added.

For 2005 College and Wharton graduate Gabriel Mandujano, his experience with the Entrepreneurship Legal Clinic has been a “huge benefit.”

Mandujano, who founded Wash Cycle Laundry, received help from the clinic in incorporating his company.

Additionally, while he was working for the Enterprise Center Community Development Corporation — a West Philadelphia nonprofit company — he partnered with the clinic to purchase a nearly $1 million building that was converted into a food incubator, which is a small kitchen local food entrepreneurs can rent by the hour.

“The legal clinic handled the entire acquisition of the building,” Mandujano said, noting that an independent law firm might have charged over $10,000.

National service

The Supreme Court Clinic has its service component at the national level.

Not only do all cases handled by the Supreme Court Clinic have the potential to be argued before the United States Supreme Court, but they also can greatly affect their clients who are unable to “afford to hire [attorneys] to review petitions,” professor of law and criminology and Director of the Supreme Court Clinic Stephanos Bibas said.

The clinic receives cases when either the Supreme Court assigns a case slated for argument or the students find cases through their own research.

“[Every morning] I wake up and read Court of Appeals decisions … [to see if] the outcome of the case rests on one issue,” third-year law student and Supreme Court Clinic member Sam Hartzell said, explaining that those are the types of cases that the Supreme Court would normally hear.

This year, the Supreme Court Clinic prepared three cases to be heard by the nation’s highest court. The first two cases — Chafin v. Chafin and Levin v. United States — were decided in favor of the side represented by the Supreme Court Clinic.

The third case — Peugh v. United States, which was argued on Feb. 26 — pertains to the constitutionality of using different sentencing guidelines at the time of a prisoner’s sentencing than those that existed at the time of the prisoner’s offense. The Court has yet to decide this case.

Although the students themselves do not argue cases before the Supreme Court — the Court requires that one be an attorney for a minimum of three years before being eligible to argue before it — they prepare briefs for the justices to read and aid in formulating the arguments that will be made before the Court.

“In other classes, [you are] always working on made-up issues,” third-year law student Danielle Acker-Susanj said. But the end product of my work in the clinic is a brief that is read by the Supreme Court Justices, she added.

After Penn

According to Rulli, one of the major goals of the clinics is “to prepare our students for the professional values, ethics and tools necessary to excel and be leaders in our society.”

For 2011 Law School graduate Avi Rosenblit, his work in the Civil Practice Clinic under Rulli was “like nothing I have ever experienced.”

As an associate for the law firm Hogan Lovells, Rosenblit currently works on criminal investigations and often goes to court on his cases. He said that because of his clinical work at Penn — where he “managed every aspect of his case” — he is now “really good at developing relationships with clients.”

1976 Wharton graduate Steven Glaser, who is also the New York hiring partner for Skadden Arps, an internationally renowned law firm, said that clinics generally are a “terrific compliment to the theoretical aspects of law school.”

“[It is] frequently a real asset for employees to have some real world experience,” Glaser said.

He added that when reviewing applicants for the Skadden Fellowship — a fellowship for funding attorneys to work in public service — his firm looks for the “most well-rounded candidates,” which frequently means “clinical experience plays a big role.”

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