Tulane Law Clinics: Seeking justice in the midst of a pandemic

2020 has been a year of upheaval and adversity for our clients, our students, and our colleagues. Despite it all, our faculty adapted and found ways to work with students and clients to address complex legal problems under extraordinary conditions. 

This atmosphere of uncertainty and hardship makes the advocacy in this newsletter especially remarkable, and we celebrate it alongside our clients: medically vulnerable asylum seekers, fence line communities pleading for environmental justice, and victims of excessive criminal sentencing and police violence.

But we also want to recognize the work done every day with clients who cannot be named, whose work is ongoing, or whose efforts may or may not succeed. This work includes the juvenile justice advocacy of Prof. David Katner and his students on behalf of minors charged with crimes for trying to stay safe in their own homes. This also includes Profs. Tim McEvoy and Shama Farooq, who with their students have fought valiantly alongside survivors of domestic violence throughout the pandemic. This further includes Prof. Katherine Mattes, who over the summer helped Criminal Justice Clinic students salvage an opportunity to argue before the Louisiana Supreme Court following pandemic-related delays. 

Against all odds, the teaching, the preparation, the drafting, the mooting, the reflection, and the advocacy continued. We can't wait for 2021!

Stacy Seicshnaydre

William K. Christovich Professor of Law

Associate Dean for Experiential Learning and   Public Interest Programs