Boston College Law School gives its students a wide range of classes to take that are taught by some of the best scholars in the field. Yet, while learning about the law in a classroom is crucial to becoming a successful attorney, nothing prepares you for day-to-day practice more than getting hands-on experience before graduating. That’s where BC Law’s clinics come in.
Law students in their second and third years of study can apply for coveted spots in any of the school’s fifteen clinics. No matter what someone’s legal interest is, there’s a clinic for them! To help students better understand the opportunities available to them, the BC Law Impact Blog is highlighting each of these clinics this semester. Here is our interview with the director of the Family Justice Clinic (and BC Law alum) Claire Donohue, who also serves as the director of the school’s social service advocacy program.
Tell us about your clinic!
In the Family Justice Clinic, students advise and represent low-income clients in civil and administrative matters related to family law and child welfare. This means students are in probate and family courts to litigate traditional family law matters: divorce, custody, alimony, and child support. But, we also represent families who have been accused of abuse or neglect and are subject to surveillance and regulation by the state. We even represent kin who have been denied the opportunity to provide kinship foster placements to their grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, etc.
Our students are court-certified as Student Attorneys and handle all phases of their clients’ cases, from client interviewing and case planning to fact investigation, discovery, client counseling, negotiation, and courtroom advocacy. We also work closely with masters of social work students to provide responsive, holistic representation to our clients.
Why is the work done by the Family Justice Clinic important?
This work is critical given how little judicial oversight exists in the family regulation space. Most allegations concern neglect, but if a child isn’t removed from the home, there will be no companion case in the juvenile court and no judicial oversight. Meanwhile, poverty is all too often confused with neglect, and so the actions of the state disproportionately hurt poor families and families of color. In particular, Massachusetts has a rate of referral to the Department of Children and Families that outpaces the national average by approximately 10%, and Massachusetts will find that a child has been abused or neglected in 31% of all reports, compared to the national average of 18%. Moreover, 76.5% of all cases in Massachusetts are neglect allegations compared to 19.3% for abuse, demonstrating that the vast majority of “neglected” children aren’t victimized by their parents’ slovenliness or disregard, as the term might suggest. Rather, their households are under-resourced, and poverty masquerades as neglect. As Dorothy Roberts so aptly summed up the same national trend: “Only 16 percent of children enter foster care because they were physically or sexually abused. The other 84 percent? They’re mostly just poor.”
What’s the origin story of the Family Justice Clinic, or of your time teaching it?
BC was among the first law schools to have a social worker in-house to support the clinicians, students, and clients of its clinics. I have a JD MSW from BC, and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to join BC Law as the director of our social service advocacy program.
When I got here, I recruited more social work students and deepened existing connections with students receiving their doctorate degrees in psychology at the Lynch School, and undergraduate students majoring in nursing at the Connell School. Masters of Social Work students now join the clinics in their field placements, working two or three days a week depending on whether they’re first- or second-year students. They partner with law students on everything from one-off case management and referrals to developing case theories or mitigation strategies. They even help with research and writing for amici and policy work.
In addition to this role, I also decided to start the Family Justice Clinic in 2022 when our Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project (JRAP) risked going dormant due to understaffing. I had worked closely with JRAP in my role with the social service advocacy program, and I felt a sense of responsibility to the families on the docket. I changed the focus of JRAP slightly to make it more family law oriented in order to keep the clinic in my wheelhouse, and to afford some opportunity for students to engage in traditional civil litigation.
What will students gain from a semester in a clinic?
The primary benefit of joining a clinic is gaining experience as lead counsel on a case or policy project. You have intensive supervision and often work in teams, so the deep dive is a supported one, but it still contemplates you taking full and true ownership over a case. This in turn puts you in meaningful, impactful proximity to people in our community who rely on legal services to make sure the rule of law works for them.
Tess Halpern is a third-year student and president of the Impact blog. Contact her at halperte@bc.edu.
BC Law: Impact 