What is an Independent Clinical?
Before Applying: Placements, Faculty Sponsors, and Supervisors
Application
Student Assignments
Credit and Enrollment
Evaluations and Grading
Winter Term
Past Independent Clinical Placements (PDF)
What is an Independent Clinical ?
The Independent Clinical Work Program at Harvard Law School offers 2L, 3L, and LLM students the opportunity to design a legal practice experience for clinical credit in special areas of interest that are otherwise not available through clinical courses. Independent Clinicals require a good measure of initiative, creative planning, responsibility and energy.
To do an Independent Clinical, students must apply with a project proposal and have their project approved by the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs. Students will be notified by email of approval and will be automatically registered for clinical credits by the Office Clinical and Pro Bono Programs (no enrollment through MyPlan is necessary).
Guidelines:
- All Independent Clinicals are graded Pass/Fail. No exceptions.
- Independent Clinical projects cannot be conducted at in-house clinics or other clinical placements available through our current clinical curriculum.
- To apply, students need a licensed Supervising Attorney and an HLS Faculty Sponsor.
- An academic paper (about 15 pages) must be submitted at the end of the semester.
- Students must send weekly emails to the Faculty Sponsor and Liz Solar of the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs with a progress report and feedback on the project.
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Before Applying
Students interested in participating in an Independent Clinical will need to secure a placement , a supervising attorney, obtain a faculty sponsor, and complete an application with a project proposal.
PLACEMENTS:
Proposed projects may be with a variety of agencies including, but not limited to: non-profit
organizations, legal services, criminal defense agencies, the judiciary, governmental agencies, or public interest organizations. Projects may include direct client service, as well as writing and research.
Approval for projects in the private sector will be determined on a case-by-case basis; approval of these proposals will be permitted only if the work will be done pro bono, focusing solely on public interest work.
The possibilities for Independent Clinical placements are large in scope. We encourage students to contact the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs to discuss their project ideas or to find out about past clinical placements that may be useful in developing projects. For assistance or questions about appropriate placements, please contact Liz Solar, Assistant Director for Externships and Administration (Austin 109, esolar@law.harvard.edu).
For a look at past placements that prior students have worked with, please review our Past Independent Clinical Placements (PDF).
Other resources to find possible placements are:
FACULTY SPONSORS:
A Faculty Sponsor is needed for all Independent Clinical projects. Students should find a Faculty Sponsor with expertise in the area of the student's Independent Clinical project.
Students must send weekly emails to Faculty Sponsors during the course of their Independent Clinical, and in creating a proposal should also discuss the content of the Final Paper, which is to be an academic paper about 15 pages in length.
Faculty Sponsors will be responsible for submitting the Pass or Fail grade at the end of the term.
Although on-site attorneys provide direct supervision, students are expected to meet regularly with the Faculty Sponsor to review and discuss their projects. Such meetings will be more limited during winter term out-of-residence projects. Therefore, students should work out a communication schedule of telephone calls, faxes and/or email with their Faculty Sponsor. Grades will be submitted by the Faculty Sponsor (for more details on grading, please see the Credit, Evaluations, Grading section.
SUPERVISING ATTORNEYS:
Students must have a supervising attorney that will be responsible for direct supervision throughout the project.
Supervisors are expected to write a detailed evaluation of student’s work at the end of the semester for submission to the Faculty Sponsor and the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs. Supervisors will receive a Supervisor Handbook from the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs that sets forth the requirements for defining work expectations and goals, conducting regular meetings with students, and evaluating performance.
See the Supervisor Evaluation Forms
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Application
Students must complete and submit an Independent Clinical Application, which includes a project proposal and requires the signature of the supervising attorney and Faculty Sponsor (HLAB students must also submit the HLAB Supplemental Approval Form).
Applications for an Independent Clinical must include a Project Proposal. This proposal should be detailed, focused, and realistic; and developed through discussions with a supervising attorney at the placement and an HLS Faculty Sponsor.
Project Proposals should contain the following information:
- Thorough exploration of the nature of the project; the academic and professional goals.
- Student’s specific responsibilities at the placement.
- Brief description of the placement and its mission.
- The clinical or non-clinical courses a student has taken which relate to the project and the relevancy of the project to a third year paper and/or career plans.
- Description of the final academic paper.
Click here to download the Independent Clinical Application
All signatures must be obtained before submitting the application. Incomplete applications or applications with missing signatures will not be processed or approved. Students will be notified of application decisions and approvals by email. Approved students will be automatically registered by the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs.
Applications must be submitted to the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs in Austin Hall 102 or 109 by the following deadlines:
| 2007-2008 Application Submission Deadlines: |
| Fall |
Thursday, September 6, 2007 |
| Winter |
Thursday, November 8, 2007 |
| Spring |
Friday, December 7, 2007 |
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Student Assignments
A basic premise of clinical legal education is that learning comes about through the self-conscious application of reflection to actual experience. All students doing Independent Clinical work are required to submit the following:
- Weekly Emails: Students must submit weekly emails to their Faculty Sponsor, with a cc to the Clinical Office: Liz Solar (esolar@law.harvard.edu). Emails should report on what the student has been working on and reflect on the clinical experience. Faculty are not required to respond to the weekly emails, but are encouraged to do so if they think they have useful observations.
- Placement Evaluation: Student experiences and opinions are extremely important to our continuing efforts to improve the quality of clinical legal education at Harvard Law School and to determine the appropriateness and effectiveness of specific placements. Therefore, at the end of the semester we require that all students complete a Placement Evaluation, available online through the Public Service Job Database (log on using your HLS username and password). The Placement Evaluation is a place for students to assess their placement, the supervision received, and the value of the clinical experience. It will help us most by being as frank, specific and constructive as possible. Student responses will in no way affect grading, as the information reported will not be reviewed outside of the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs until after the semester’s grading process has been completed. Students will receive an email from the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs at the end of the semester with a web link to their personal evaluation. Please do not create your own evaluation on the database.
- Final Paper:All students must write an academic paper at the end of the Independent Clinical term of approximately 15 pages in length. This paper cannot be a work product from the clinical placement. Rather, the paper should be an analysis of the policy and practice of the work in which you were engaged and requires some additional research outside of the clinical work. For example, is the organization effective in their representation and advocacy vis-à-vis their stated policy objectives; is a particular statute designed to have the effects it is having in practice; are their cross cultural barriers to representation, etc. This final paper may include a reflective component, but should not solely be a reflection paper. A copy of the final paper with a Final Report Cover Sheet must be submitted to: (a) the Faculty Sponsor, and (b) Liz Solar of the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs in Austin 109 by the applicable deadline. Download the Final Paper Cover Sheet.
- Confidentiality: Please be sensitive to issues of client confidentiality when submitting weekly emails and final papers. Client
names and any other identifying information should be deleted from these documents prior to submission.
The Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs will not share student weekly emails or final papers with supervising attorneys without students' permission, although students are free to do so. Directors of clinics who oversee the supervising attorneys will be able to see placement evaluations with the student's personal information removed.
For student assignment due dates, please see the Clinical Calendar.
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Credit and Enrollment
CLINICAL CREDIT:
Fall and Spring: Students may receive 2, 3 or 4 clinical credits in the fall and spring semesters. In the fall and spring, every clinical credit is equivalent to 5 hours of clinical work per week during the 12-week term (Fly-out week and Spring break are not clinical work weeks).
2 credits = 10 hours a week
3 credits = 15 hours a week
4 credits = 20 hours a week
Winter: Students will receive 2 clinical credits and must work full time (40 hours per week) and exclusively on clinical work during the 3-week winter term.
Clinical Credit Note: Only 12 clinical credits can count towards the JD degree. Only 16 credits of combined clinical, cross registration, and written work can count towards the JD degree. Please check with the Registrar's Office for specific questions regarding credits.
Students may only enroll in 1 clinical per semester for a maximum of 4 clinical credits (winter maximum is 2 clinical credits).
ENROLLMENT:
Once an Independent Clinical application is approved, the student will be notified of the approval by email. Approved students are automatically registered by the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs; students do not register or add an Independent Clinical through MyPlan.
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Evaluations and Grading
We encourage students to meet regularly with Supervisors for feedback throughout the semester and to initiate an exit interview at the end of the semester to discuss the Supervisor's evaluation.
Supervisor Evaluations: Supervising Attorneys are required to provide two written evaluations of students' work, assessing areas such as performance, judgment, ethical sensitivity, relationships, etc. Supervisors must complete a Supervisor Mid-Semester Evaluation, and a Supervisor Final Evaluation. Supervisor evaluations should be submitted to Liz Solar (esolar@law.harvard.edu) by the appropriate deadline. Winter Term: Due to the short winter period, only the Supervisor Final Evaluation is required.
Student Evaluations: All students must complete a Placement Evaluation at the end of the semester. Students will receive an email link to this online evaluation when it is available. For more information on the Student Placement Evaluation, please see the Student Assignments section above.
Grading: All Independent Clinicals are graded Pass/Fail. Supervising attorneys will recommend either a Pass or Fail grade to the Faculty sponsor, who will also take into account the final paper when assigning the final Pass or Fail grade.
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Winter Term
PROJECT CRITERIA:
Because the winter term is only about 3 weeks long, the winter term is not conducive to many projects. In addition to the application requirements described above, independent clinical projects in the winter term must be discreet and able to be realistically completed in 3 weeks, or there must be a well-developed plan for continuing and/or finishing the work during intersession (the week between the winter and spring terms) or the spring semester. Students should design a winter term project well in advance with their supervising attorney to determine a specific project or tasks that can be accomplished during the winter term and that will be useful to the organization. The application proposal must include a detailed plan of the specific project or tasks, with significant input from the supervising attorney. If more than one student will be involved in an international project, the group may submit one independent clinical application, but must explain in the proposal why each student is necessary and the role s/he will play. For domestic projects, each student must submit a separate application.
CLINICAL CREDIT & WORK HOURS
Students receive 2 clinical credits for winter term independent clinicals, and must work full time and exclusively on clinical work (40 hours per week) during the 3-week winter term. This intensive schedule is necessary for students to attain the minimum number of clinical hours that students must complete in the fall or spring semester (40 hours per week multiplied by the 3 working weeks is equivalent to the minimum 120 hours students must do in the fall or spring).
FUNDING
There is a limited amount of funding available for students participating in an Independent Clinical during the winter term to offset the cost of travel and lodging. Students must apply for funding, and travel grants will be allotted in a selective process based on the academic merit of the proposal. If a project is contingent upon funding, students should not make travel or work commitments until they have secured a travel grant. Expenses submitted for funding consideration in the application must be reasonable and necessary for the completion of the project. Students must complete the appropriate funding application and submit it with the Independent or Continuing Clinical application. There are different guidelines and applications for international versus domestic travel. For more information, please see our Winter Term Funding page.
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