Community Justice and Mediation Clinic

6-8 units

Open to 2L and 3L J.D. students. The Community Justice & Mediation Clinic introduces students to civil rights and dispute resolution law, policy, and practice from a community-based perspective. The Clinic focuses on housing, health, and education discrimination; economic instability; and related civil rights and community issues. For decades, the Clinic has worked closely with Legal Services of Eastern MO (Neighborhood Advocacy Program, Consumer Program, Education Justice Program, and Youth & Family Advocacy Program), a major St. Louis legal services provider that protects the civil rights of individuals in these client communities. The Clinic also collaborates with Miles Mediation & Arbitration (formerly US Arbitration & Mediation), other legal services providers, and local government offices. Clinic students engage in individual representation, interviewing, counseling, and representing a minimum of five clients/community projects each during the semester. Clinic students also provide class representation on behalf of these client groups through multiple community lawyering strategies, including impact litigation, legislative drafting and advocacy, media advocacy, policy development, court reform, and community legal education ("street law"). Clinic students also assist with a minimum of five eviction mediations each in St. Louis County Pro-Se Housing Court and in the community, in conjunction with the St. Louis Mediation Project, coordinated by the Clinic for 15 years. [Note: Students are prohibited from taking more than one clinic/externship/supervised practicum in the same semester. Students who are not in good standing (for either academic or disciplinary reasons) are not eligible to participate in a clinic/externship. Students earn 6 credits for the clinic, although a student may earn up to 8 credits with permission of the professor. For 6 credits, students must work a minimum of 255 hours over the course of the semester. For 8 credits, students must work a minimum of 340 hours over the course of the semester. A course from the ethics curriculum is a pre- or co-requisite (unless waived by the instructor). The course is graded on a modified pass/fail basis: HP (3.90), P, LP (3.00), F (2.50). To participate in this clinic, you must either have completed or be currently enrolled in courses containing at least 5 cumulative hours of education on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism (BCCCR content). This clinic includes 5 hours of BCCCR content, so in total, you will need 0 hours from your other courses to meet the requirement. Courses that include BCCCR content are tagged in Workday to help you track your progress.