Public Interest Course Recommendations

 

Course selection is highly individualized. Below are some recommendations from practitioners in particular fields, but these should not be taken as a rigid set of requirements, but rather as a general guide for focused study.

AIDS/HIV

Robert Greenwald
Senior Clinical Instructor, Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center at Harvard Law School
Former Director of Public Policy and Legal Affairs, Aids Action Committee of Massachusetts

Recommended Courses:

  • Health Care Law
  • Health Law Policy Workshop
  • Race and Justice Seminar: Civil Justice Block
  • Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy: Reading Group
  • Political Economy of Health Care
  • Social Movements, Law Stories, and Law Making
  • Ethics and Health Policy
  • Law and Public Health
  • Trusts and Estates

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Animal Rights

Christine Garcia
The Animal Rights Law Office

Recommended Courses:

  • Constitutional Law
  • Endangered Species Act
  • The Takings Clause
  • Environmental Law
  • Evidence
  • Property
  • Civil Procedure
  • Criminal Law
  • Criminal Procedure

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Appellate Advocacy

Brian Wolfman
Director, Public Citizen Litigation Group

Recommended Courses:

  • Advanced Civil Procedure
  • Appellate Courts
  • Constitutional Law
  • Federal Courts
  • Evidence
  • Administrative Law

Other Advice:

  • In general, courses about procedure are useful for students interested in being appellate lawyers.

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Consumer Law/Bankruptcy

Chi Chi Wu
Staff Attorney, National Consumer Law Center

Recommended courses:

  • Working on public policy issues, especially dealing with federal agencies, the most valuable course for me was Administrative Law.
  • Contracts
  • Legal History
  • Tax
  • Corporations
  • Consumer Law
  • Bankruptcy
  • The Uniform Commercial Code
  • Antitrust
  • Clinicals - always valuable to do a legal services clinical to see what issues low-income clients deal with. I think clinical placements in other settings (government, nonprofit) would be useful.

Other Advice:

  • So much of the law that we rely upon is statutory and administrative regulation - common law plays a very small role. Courses on the substantive area a student is interested in (environmental, family law/domestic violence, housing law, etc) would be useful, as well as course on the legislative and regulatory process.
  • Right now, Elizabeth Warren is doing groundbreaking work related to the issues we work on, and in fact, one of my colleagues communicates with her regularly.

Elizabeth Warren
Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Recommended courses:

  • The Predatory Lending Clinic is a gem. The work permits students to participate in direct client services, but also in the development of bigger policy initiatives. The clinic offerings on bankruptcy have also been quite exceptional.
  • I think students interested in any kind of public interest work should take as many classes with a business orientation as they can. The reason is simple: They need to be familiar with the tools that large corporations will often use against their clients. If they understand the workings of laws like secured transactions, bankruptcy, corporate finance and other such offerings, they will discover both excellent defenses and potential offensive weapons that they otherwise would miss. Moreover, public interest lawyers need the tools of commercial law in order to structure settlements and payouts on lawsuits in ways that offer the best protection for their clients.
  • Any course that makes a student think hard is valuable.
  • Howell Jackson is involved in some very interesting work on financial instruments that has a strong public policy implication. Duncan Kennedy is doing housing work that relates to commercial law and bankruptcy.

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Civil Rights

Victor Bolden
General Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense Fund

Recommended courses:

  • Constitutional Law – highly recommended
  • Federal Courts
  • Advanced constitutional law seminars (S. Ct. advocacy)
  • Appellate advocacy courses
  • Trial Advocacy Workshop
  • Advanced Civil Procedure
  • Tax – thorny tax issues can come up
  • Corporations
  • Administrative Law
  • Getting as much clinical experience as you can is very helpful
  • Take a variety of things and understand that you'll be litigating in a variety of issues and variety of matters, e.g., contractual issues, tax issues, corporate issues.
  • Course selection does not need to drive your career path. Take courses you're interested in, but make sure you've got a good solid foundation of legal courses.
  • Make sure you're exposed to a variety of things so that you learn to think in different ways; don't not take courses because you think you won't need them.

Other advice:

  • Use law school to be the best lawyer possible.
  • Take advantage of clinical opportunities, work on journals.
  • Take opportunities to meet with and get comfortable with clients – vitally important.
  • Take advantage of things that force you to think deeply about problems.
  • Take advantage of opportunities to develop trial skills.
  • You can never know too much with respect to procedure/federal rules – it frees you to do your work effectively.
  • The more you understand how to navigate through the legal system, the more effective you can be for your clients.
  • Have as broad a base of knowledge in as many substantive areas as possible – you can always call in outside counsel, but it's good to have knowledge yourself.

Matthew Colangelo
Assistant Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense Fund

Recommended courses:

  • Federal Courts – very important, more important than just if you want to get a clerkship or go into law teaching.
  • Evidence
  • Advanced Civil Procedure – especially if interested in impact litigation
  • Federal Litigation
  • Taxation – important for civil rights lawyers because what you learn in a taxation class is statutory interpretation. The tax code is the most complicated statute in the country. Once you've navigated the tax code, you won't have trouble with other statutes. Substantive understanding of the taxation system is not used often.
  • Administrative Law – a critical class to take; if doing civil rights litigation for a nonprofit, it's more common that you'll be suing the federal government or state agencies than if in private practice.
  • Constitutional Law
  • Take seminars or clinicals that will give you a sense of what practicing lawyers in this field do. This is probably just as critical as some of the procedural course selections. Seminars will let you dive into a topic in more depth. Clinicals with a non-profit are important to see how non-profits work.
  • About taking corporations - have never found this course particularly helpful, but there's nothing wrong with being well rounded if you want to take it.
  • Classes on areas of substantive law like employment discrimination or housing law
  • Course selection depends somewhat depends on what kind of civil rights law you want to practice. If don't want to be litigator, but a policy analyst, classes on substance may be more important. If you want to be a litigator, it will be helpful to take substantive classes, but many procedure classes might be more helpful in the end.

Other advice:

  • Helpful to do a journal.
  • Helpful to do a clerkship to see how judges work and operate and how judges decide cases. It's also a fantastic opportunity to see the range of skills, abilities and approaches that practicing lawyers bring to cases.
  • Think carefully about summer jobs – try to get experience in a number of different contexts (e.g., office size).
  • Researching for professors is a great way to think about legal issues outside of the classroom contexts and develop relationships that are helpful.
    Whether you need experience after law school depends on the individual organization.
  • Civil rights organizations will likely look for commitment to and experience in civil rights litigation more than whether you've worked for a firm or in public interest.

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Criminal Law

Miriam Gohara
Assistant Counsel, Criminal Justice Project, NAACP Legal Defense Fund

Recommended courses:

  • Take full advantage of HLS's excellent clinical offerings. I took "Lawyering for Poor People" with Jeanne Charn and then Prof. Ogletree's juvenile defender clinic. I learned a tremendous amount of substantive law as well as advocacy skills and client relationship skills. The clinical courses also helped me focus my interest and hone in on a particular type of public interest career.
  • Constitutional Law is a must.
  • Jurisprudence - one of the best classes I took at HLS and really good for getting a sense of different schools of legal philosophy and how they are applied in today's courts; especially important if you intend to clerk.
  • Corporations - not intuitively something you think of as connected to public interest law, but as one HLS professor pointed out to me, all organizations are corporations of some kind in that they all have oversight bodies with fiduciary responsibilities, etc.; and even non-profits have to know how to govern themselves, raise money, etc. The line between public interest and private companies is increasingly blurry, so I recommend this course highly.
  • Some statute-based class: we study case law during 1L and we don't always think about statutes, but the vast majority of law is made by statute. I took Labor Law-- fantastic class-- and Statutory Interpretation. Both were indispensable in giving me a more complete sense of how statutes are written, how to read them, and how they apply in the real world.

Ingrid V. Eagly
Deputy Federal Public Defender, Office of the Federal Public Defender

Recommended courses:

  • Family Law with Martha Minow
  • Poverty Law with Lucie White
  • Immigration Law with Deborah Anker
  • Criminal Defense with Charles Ogletree

Other advice:

  • Take advantage of all the programs offered by OPIA. I found the clinical placements to be very helpful. And, of course, summer internships, which OPIA is wonderful about helping you find. I know others did Legal Aid Society and really liked it, but it requires a significant time commitment and I was a law tutor and didn't feel like I had enough time for it.

Gregg Maisel
Assistant U.S. Attorney, D.C. Office

Recommended courses:

  • My recommendation for anyone interested in a career as an Assistant U.S. Attorney — or for any other position that involves courtroom litigation — is to take the Trial Advocacy Workshop and to get as much clinical experience as possible while in law school.

Other advice:

  • I am also a big fan of working on a law journal, for honing writing and editing skills and for instilling the necessary attention to details and sources.
  • Finally, I am a big proponent of doing a judicial clerkship after law school, either in a trial court or an appellate court. I think a clerkship experience provides tremendous insight into effective written and oral advocacy. I also think that if a student knows the city where s/he plans to practice, serving as a judicial law clerk in one of the federal or local courts of that jurisdiction is a great way to develop connections within that district as well as to obtain a full appreciation for the practice in that jurisdiction.

Erin Murphy
Former Attorney with Public Defender Service of Washington, D.C.
Acting Professor of Law, Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley

Recommended courses:

  • If you ever want to be in a courtroom:
    • Evidence
    • Take an advocacy class
  • If you want to be a criminal lawyer of any kind: Advanced Criminal Procedure
  • If you want to do any kind of public interest work: Administrative Law
  • You don't need to take corporations or tax unless the work you are doing as a PI lawyer may draw upon these topics (like for instance environmental etc.). You can, if you want to, but you don't have to. I didn't. I'm still employable (though not as a tax lawyer, that's for sure!).
  • Notwithstanding the advice above, take the classes of professors you hear are fabulous teachers, even if you don't like their topic.

Other advice:

  • Follow your heart in terms of classes and jobs. But be thoughtful in your choices. You are laying groundwork. Who goes through three years of law school claiming to want to be a civil rights lawyer but never takes civil rights when it is offered?! Public interest jobs are competitive, and most public interest employers think of themselves as very specialized -- if you've done a million different public interest things, they may think you're a nice person, but you may lose a job out to the person that has done a million different public interest things all related to one public interest issue. A coherent picture isn't just important in terms of looking good, it's also about getting the right skills.
  • If you want to enter academic life, write and write often and at every opportunity. You will most likely have to produce something in order to go on the job market, and you will be in a better position to do that if you have spent time on a journal as a student. It will expose you to legal academic writing, and also give you a chance -- which you should take -- to write something yourself. Clerk. And then do a good job keeping in touch with academic life at some level, if it's natural. Drop your favorite professor an email and say, "Hey, just wanted to let you know I'm now working at XYZ, putting to use all those great things you taught me about joinder and severance!" That way, when you want to get back in touch when you go on the job market, you aren't just coming out of the ether.
  • Find professors that you admire at least professionally – and hopefully personally -- or that are doing work in the field that you wish to enter, and take advantage of opportunities to know them better. Take their classes, be a good student, and perhaps try to work as a research assistant or volunteer for a project (like arranging a conference) they're doing. Ask for advice about jobs, career paths, etc. from those you admire. Don't show up weekly at office hours just for face time -- that is annoying, but do be proactive in finding areas of overlap in your interests and in offering yourself for research, etc.
  • Don't panic when 2L summer comes around and all your public interest friends get dressed up in suits to interview with firms. I went through it, and it's scary. You start to think that you are an idiot. That you should be more open-minded, and not so quick to dismiss an opportunity (not to mention all that money). But trust me, you'll live. And if you know you want to do public interest when you graduate, do public interest your second summer. There may be many good reasons to "try out" a firm, especially if you're not sure you want to do public interest work. But you don't have to "try out" a firm. In fact, if you are certain you don't want to work at a firm, you are wasting a summer when you "try it out." In an ideal world, we'd all have a chance to try on a bunch of things just for fun. In the real world, you have two summers plus whatever clinical etc. opportunities to see what fits. If you find something that fits, stick with it and build your resume to make yourself competitive for that job.
  • I know I already said it, but I really feel I should say it again: follow your heart. People told me that I should get a Ph.D. if I wanted an academic job, but I didn't because there wasn't a Ph.D. program that felt like the right fit. People told me that being on law review would be a bad idea if I wanted to be a practicing public defender, because they would think it was an irrelevant skill set. But I did it because I wanted to. The point is that you have to do what feels right to you, after thoughtful reflection about your goals and aims. Sometimes you will lose out on jobs or opportunities because you didn't follow a predictable path, but the time for rat racing is done. Now is the time to gather experiences that are meaningful to you, and that push you along the path of being a happier member of the world. So do that!

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Disability

Linda D. Kilb
Director, California Legal Services Trust Fund Support Center Program Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, Inc. (DREDF)

Recommended courses:

  • The skill sets involved in a disability rights law practice (i.e., a practice involving affirmative claims for discrimination based on disability, which is what I can speak to from experience) include, broadly, (1) client counseling and interaction with clients, (2) substantive law knowledge, and (3) general litigation skills. Thus, any course work or clinical experiences that involve these skill sets are very valuable, regardless of whether the substantive law involved is actually disability rights law (though of course, that is ideal).
  • Client Counseling and Interaction:
    • Any experience that puts you in touch with real people when you are acting in a professional capacity can be valuable on this score. The "counseling" aspect of law in large measure builds on general people skills: learning how to listen to people and offer support and comfort while also gathering information relevant to a specific purposes (in this instance, a legal purpose) in a systematic way. Most any type of clinical experience can be an excellent opportunity to observe and try out these skills. Clinicals also give students the opportunity to practice time management skills --- learning how to juggle multiple cases or other demands, pacing work to meet deadlines, etc. From a professional perspective it's also important to know how to draw out critical information and priorities, so that you can offer the best possible protection to your client. There may be classes that focus on these skill sets - e.g., classes that address interviewing techniques, ethics courses, etc.
    • If you can't find an existing clinical that seems suited, fits your schedule or if your preferred clinical is full, consider trying to create your own experience though an independent field study or simply as a volunteer. In crafting an individualized clinical opportunity, keep in mind that most non- profits and community groups are pressed for time and resources, and that this is a double-edged situation. On the one hand, organizations are often grateful for volunteer contributions, but on the other hand, it takes a lot of care and feeding to make a volunteer situation work. So, in offering your services, and in fulfilling any commitment that might result, be conscious of the fact that it is a big investment for organizations to offer training and supervision time.
  • Substantive Law Knowledge:
    • Disability rights
    • General civil rights
    • Employment law
    • Constitutional law
  • General Litigation Skills:
    • Moot court experiences
    • Trial advocacy workshops
    • Legal writing and research
    • Evidence
    • Civil Procedure
    • Federal Courts
    • Mediation or other Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) courses
    • All aspects of general litigation skills are valuable to an affirmative disability rights practice. Because many such claims involve federal statutes, gathering skills relevant to federal practice is also important.

Other advice:

  • When I am screening resumes I look for folks whose activities demonstrate an in-fact commitment to the things that they say are important to them. This need not necessarily be legal experience (though that's wonderful), but can include various things that illustrate a seriousness about purported interests.
    • Have they worked with people with disabilities?
    • Participated in disability community activities?
    • Sought out experiences and internships that are relevant to the skills sets they will need in their chosen career?
    • Done things that suggest a genuine curiosity about key elements of the practice or activities they want to be hired to pursue?

Amanda Maisels
Trial Attorney, Disability Rights Section, U.S. Department of Justice

Recommended courses:

  • Disability law might be thought of in 2 tracks -- disability based discrimination law and disability benefits law (e.g., SSI/SSDI, disability insurance).
  • In the discrimination arena:
    • Any course in the arena of civil rights law would probably be somewhat useful, because it would provide exposure to the civil rights paradigm, which disability rights law employs.
    • Much of disability rights law is employment discrimination, so a course on that topic would be useful.
  • In terms of disability benefits law:
    • Administrative Law
    • Poverty Law
    • Contracts (disability insurance would be based on contract law)
  • Any student interested in these issues will want to take Constitutional Law because of the equal protection and due process issues. Also, lately disability rights law has involved a lot of constitutional law because of the Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity challenges.
  • Probably the experience most useful for me was my clinical work, which I did at the Legal Aid Bureau, because it exposed me to individuals with disabilities through my SSI cases.

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Economic Development – Domestic

Jaime Lee
Associate, Reno Cavanaugh

Recommended courses:

  • Harvard Mediation Program - useful for people in both transactional and litigation work, and I think particularly applicable for people doing direct client services, as it focuses on communication skills, information-gathering techniques, and empowering stakeholder decision-making. Also, many disputes that people automatically believe need to be litigated do not really need to go through that process, and HMP provides direct, hands-on training in how to resolve such disputes creatively without litigation. In addition to the skills you get through HMP, you also get out into the real world a bit, and the activity of mediating can be tremendously rewarding.
  • I also recommend that people look into cross registering as much as possible, and to not be discouraged by the complicated rules and lack of coordination among the different graduate programs. There are law-related classes in other graduate schools that are more focused on real-world application and the broader context of how the laws fit into the bigger picture, whereas the law school classes are often tunnel-visioned into the law itself. Law students can also gain a lot from non-law classes in other schools as well, especially if you have a specific area in which you are interested.
  • Visiting Professor Bill Simon's Community Economic Development class.
  • Professor Jerold Kayden in the urban planning school is also a truly wonderful lecturer and when I was there offered two very good classes, Planning and Environmental Law and Public/Private Partnerships.
  • Duncan Kennedy's Housing Law and Policy Class was good, but much more theoretical than useful.
  • Visiting Professor Stephen Bright's death-penalty class was truly inspiring for anyone, regardless of whether you are interested in that kind of work or not.

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Education

Deborah Gordon
Staff Attorney, Education Law Center

Recommended courses:

  • Clinical work – either the new CAP program or any other independent placement that allows the student to help do direct representation of a child and understand the issues of, for example, an expulsion hearing or an IEP meeting.
  • Trial Advocacy Workshop is helpful
  • General civil rights courses
  • Courses in other relevant public interest topics (e.g., Disability Law)
  • Depending on what type of education law a student is interested in, other classes may be helpful, too. I didn't take tax law and have survived in the real world. But for someone interested in school finance law, tax law may help since schools are usually funded by local property taxes. (Though I'm not sure you'd touch on the school funding issues in a basic tax course.)
  • I'd recommend anything taught by Professor Minow.
  • I recommend taking a class in the KSG or GSE, though it's not necessary to becoming an education lawyer.

Other advice:

  • I think getting involved in a reading group focused on education law is a good idea to learn the issues and relevant materials. Students can start it themselves and have a professor sponsor them.
  • Join Advocates for Education! It's a great organization and it's a way to meet other law students interested in education law.
  • Work for a professor who does education law or a related field.

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Election Law/Democratic Process

Don Simon

Partner, Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Endreson & Perry, LLP

Recommended courses:

  • Constitutional Law
  • Political law courses
  • Campaign Finance Law
  • Law of Democracy
  • Relevant, but not required:
    • Federal Courts – relevant to sophisticated litigation
    • Administrative Law
    • Possibly policy courses at the Kennedy School
  • Nothing is really required, you just have to apprentice in it and work someplace where you can get real hands on experience.

Other advice:

  • Work can be done from the reform side, party side, or corporate side.
  • It's a Washington, D.C.-based phenomenon.
  • The work will be administrative and litigation focused.

Jan Witold Baran
Partner, Wiley Rein & Fielding LLP

Recommended courses:

  • Basic skills are needed, including knowledge of civil procedure, contracts, some tort law, tax, employment and even copyright, trademarks, and communication law
  • Constitutional Law
  • Campaign Finance Law
  • Courses focusing on due process, equal protection, voting rights, the First Amendment and separation of powers can be helpful.
  • Legal ethics and professional responsibility. This is the one course that I believe is indispensable. A lawyer must understand the ethical obligations of the profession. While this is true in all legal work, I find that lawyers in politics can become particularly challenged since they often find themselves rooting for the client in a political sense. A lawyer must be aware of the role he or she plays, particularly in election campaigns, and not lose sight of one's professional duty to provide objective independent legal counsel and to avoid conflicts of interest.

Other advice:

  • Federal and state laws have detailed statutes and regulations pertaining to campaign finance, ballot access, recounts and even formation and recognition of political parties. In some ways, this jurisprudence is a little like studying the Uniform Commercial Code, which I personally did not find either interesting or enjoyable 35 years ago. But if you want to be an election lawyer you will have to confront the technical campaign finance laws at some point.
  • In regards to career opportunities, there are several places to look. There are opportunities in government service including federal or state campaign finance agencies, lobbying enforcement agencies, the Department of Justice Civil Rights division and congressional offices and committees with jurisdiction or interest in these areas such as the House and Senate judiciary committees, House Administration, Senate Rules and perhaps others. There also are number of public interest organizations active in this field including The Brennan Center, Common Cause, Public Citizen, the Madison Center, and others. The two major political parties have several committees that have in house legal offices. Finally, there are a few but growing number of private firms, large and small, that have active practices in this field.

Justin Levitt
Associate Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice, NYU School of Law

Recommended courses:

  • 1st tier:
    • Administrative Law
    • Constitutional Law
    • Evidence
    • Federal Litigation: Civil
    • First Amendment Theory
    • Law and the Political Process
    • Law of Democracy
    • Taxation: Taxation and Regulation of Nonprofit Organizations
  • 2nd tier:
    • Citizenship: Seminar
    • Community Action for Social and Economic Rights
    • Federal Courts and the Federal System
    • Introduction to Advocacy: Civil
    • Law and Public Policy Advanced Research Seminar
    • Mobilization and Organization: Reading Group
    • Philanthropy and the Law
    • Public Law Workshop: Seminar
    • Statutory Interpretation in the Post-New Deal State: Seminar
    • Theory and Practice of Public Lawyering: Seminar
  • 3rd tier:
    • Corporate Speech, Commercial Speech and the Constitution: Seminar
    • Corporations
    • Labor Law
    • Leadership in the Public Sector
    • Legal Profession: The Responsibilities of Public Lawyers
    • Local Government Law
    • Quantitative Social Science, Law, Expert Witnesses, and Litigation: Seminar
    • Regulation and Allocation of Risk
  • As with anything else, interested students needn't take any particular course or set of courses.

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Environment/Energy/Utilities

Kit Kennedy
Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Counsel

Recommended courses:

  • Environmental law
  • Administrative law
  • Federal courts
  • Land use law
  • Local government law
  • Corporations – since you're dealing with business interests so much, it's somewhat helpful.
  • Clinical courses – these help your development as a lawyer; this can be any type of clinic that involves hands-on lawyering skills.

Other advice:

  • It's helpful to jump in and check out environmental law through summer jobs, clinical type placements, and semester internships. Many people don't understand what the practice of environmental law is like – it's very complex, statutory, and regulatory. Get your feet wet as soon as possible.

Aaron Colangelo
Staff Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council

Recommended courses:

  • Administrative law
  • Local government law
  • Any classes on legislative process
  • Introductory environmental law
  • Negotiations
  • Any kind of public interest clinical experience is helpful, whether it's environmental law, landlord tenant, civil rights, domestic violence, etc. -- just to get used to representing clients in a typical context and dealing with practical issues that arise.
  • Anything that you're interested in that might be available, like an Indian law seminar, natural resources seminar, international environmental law, etc.

Sierra B. Weaver
Staff Attorney, The Ocean Conservancy

Recommended courses:

  • Administrative Law - absolutely, hands down, the essential top pick.
  • Federal Courts or some type of Advanced Civil Procedure - most important for those going into litigation, but good for everyone, I think.
  • Constitutional Law
  • Environmental Law - I put this fourth because, although this is obviously a very important course, the basics you learn in the three listed above provide a more important foundation. Also, any environmental law class will, by its nature, be a survey course and not provide that much depth in any one statute or subject area. Furthermore, jobs that HLS students or alumni are likely to find themselves in may be dealing with statutes that weren't even covered during a basic environmental law survey course.
  • As many specialty environmental courses as are offered and fit each student's interest, including:
    • Natural Resources Law - the general environmental law survey course will deal mostly with pollution, but the other side of the field is about resource allocation and protection. This is a huge section of the environmental movement/community and I think essential for folks wanting to go into the field.
    • Environmental Justice
    • International Environmental Law
    • Local Government Law
    • Federal Indian Law
    • Land Use Planning and Regulation
    • Other examples might be Water Law, Animal Law, Toxic Waste Regulation, Mediation (which I never took but wish I did), etc.
  • And don't forget clinicals! I'd especially encourage folks to take advantage of the winter clinical option to spend that time off campus actually working in a non-profit or government agency.

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Health/Medical

Edwin Park
Senior Health Policy Analyst, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Recommended courses:

  • Introduction to Health Law
  • If interested in a health law practice in a typical law firm practice (i.e., corporate work related to health care):
    • Corporations
    • Taxation
  • If interested in the regulatory health law work as practiced in DC:
    • Administrative law
    • Public Health law
  • Unfortunately, the HLS curriculum does not really include the classes needed to do public interest work in health which is often related to the major public health insurance programs: Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP. (The basics of the health law curriculum are not that relevant.) To be an effective public interest lawyer, whether in government service or in the non-profit world, requires substantive knowledge of those programs. There may be classes at the public health school, Kennedy School or the health policy graduate program at Harvard, like eligibility rules, program financing, etc. If those are available and you can get credit for taking those classes, I would recommend those as the most essential for public interest lawyers.

Other advice:

  • For career advice, I would recommend working for firms/public interest organizations that work on health care, because jobs in health law are usually quite selective/limited and that experience would allow someone to get in those groups later.
  • Internships and experience with health policy organizations outside of the law are also recommended.
  • I used an Economic Development clinical to do a clinical internship with Health Law Advocates, the public interest arm of Health Care for All, a health care advocacy group in Boston that was instrumental in the recent Massachusetts health reform effort.

Chris Pascal
Director, Office of Research Integrity, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services

Recommended courses:

  • Tort law
  • Science law or related if available
  • Obviously medical and health law
  • Legal issues related to academic and medical institutions, including policies governing employee standards of conduct
  • Law regarding the professional obligations of doctors, nurses, other health care providers
  • Corporate law regarding medical and health care providers, e.g., HMOs, insurance companies, hospitals, etc.

Other advice:

  • Do something you love.

Marc Steinberg
Deputy Director, Health Policy, Families USA

Recommended courses:

  • I strongly recommend Administrative Law, as administrative agencies have an enormous impact on health care
  • Tax is probably useful too – much health care policy these days is focused around the tax code.
  • If there is a course that covers ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act), that is probably helpful, as that statute governs large private insurance carriers in the US. I don't know if there is such a course, but there have been times in my career when I wish I had taken one.
  • If a student knows she/he wants to go into health care law, taking a related course is sensible. The description of the "Health Care Law" course looks thorough, but of course I don't know what it's like in reality.
  • I think any sort of clinical work where students work with clients in the health law field is valuable. My bias and experience is towards public interest poverty work, so I think clinical work in Medicaid and Medicare is very useful, both to understand how these programs work (and don't work), how to interpret statutes and regulations in the real world, and to see the importance of these programs in clients' lives.

Other advice:

  • I have found that summer jobs I did in legal services, both direct services and some impact work, served me well by exposing me to many issues and to clients. I recommend that anyone with an interest in health care issues should get some exposure to real clients dealing with medical issues, either through a clinic or summer internship.
  • I imagine other work in a hospital or government agency could also be useful.
  • In terms of clerkships: I think clerkships are always a valuable experience. Learning how a courtroom works from the inside, and having to do intensive legal research and writing can be very helpful in many ways. I don't think clerking is particularly more or less useful in health care law than any other field. The more a person is interested in litigation, the more a clerkship is valuable. If someone knows they never want to litigate, then there's less to gain from a clerkship, though it's still an interesting experience. But I have plenty of skilled colleagues who did not clerk, and it hasn't affected their careers at all.

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Housing

Todd Espinosa
Attorney, National Housing Law Project

Recommended courses:

  • Federal Courts
  • Housing Law
  • Real Estate
  • Secured Transactions
  • Land Use
  • Tax courses
  • I would recommend against policy or "public interest" courses. You can easily learn about policy on your own. It's much harder to teach yourself mortgage law.
  • I would also recommend some courses at HBS or the urban planning department of HDS -- especially those related to housing economics, public finance, real estate development, and statistics and demography.
  • HLAB was a good intro to litigation basics, but I'm not sure it's really worth the time commitment.
  • Duncan Kennedy was especially helpful.

Rebecca Plaut Mautner
Director of Real Estate Development, Women's Institute for Housing and Economic Development

Recommended courses:

  • The best preparation I got at HLS were the situations that allowed for hands-on work -- like a clinical at Greater Boston Legal Services' Housing Unit, a course with lots of case studies on Real Estate Law, a January spent in DC on an internship, an unpaid internship with a nonprofit developer in Boston. Over the past 12 years, I have drawn on those experiences a lot, but drawn very little on things I learned in more conventional courses. The more clinical and hands-on experience, the better!

Other advice:

  • I am always happy to work with HLS students as interns and help to provide guidance!

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Human Rights

Carol Pier
Labor Rights and Trade Researcher, Human Rights Watch

  • Recommended courses:
  • Labor Law
  • International Litigation
  • International Law/Transnational Legal Problems
  • Immigration Law
  • Human Rights Law
  • Commercial trade courses
  • General public international law courses
  • A course on the European Union
  • Any courses offered on trade agreements or organizations
  • I took a course at the Fletcher School - Introduction to International Trade and Finance - which I highly recommend. It was taught by Lisa Lynch, who is fantastic.
  • Clinical work in the immigration and human rights clinics. Immigration issues in particular are extremely important in the globalization debate, and both a course and clinical experience in that field are valuable.

Other advice:

  • A piece of advice with regard to summer jobs: if you are considering working in an international public interest field, I highly recommend spending at least one summer abroad, preferably in a developing country. This is amazing and invaluable experience, demonstrates your commitment to the work, and will also be helpful in the search for future employment in the field.

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Immigration

Lucas Guttentag
Immigrants' Rights Project Director, American Civil Liberties Union

Recommended courses:

  • Constitutional Law
  • Federal Courts
  • Administrative Law
  • Immigration Law (basic and advanced)
  • International Human Rights Law
  •  Labor Law
  • Benefits/Welfare Law
  • Client Counseling and Interviewing
  • Ethics
  • Legal writing and precise analysis are essential.
  • Clinical work can be very valuable.

Other advice:

  • Be flexible about location, type of work when you're looking for public interest positions.
  • Take career "risks" appropriate to your interests, personality and situation.
  • Clerkships are valuable.
  • Decide how much mentoring you want/need in your first job.
  • Think about whether your interest is in individual client representation, impact litigation, advocacy, organizing, etc. If you want to litigate, get experience doing that and work in an environment where litigation is valued and with experienced litigators. If you want to do policy analysis or advocacy, find a place that values that, etc.
  • Public interest jobs are unfortunately relatively few and making trade-offs is almost inevitable. Prioritize what's important and be willing to start with a job that has one (or maybe two) elements important for you.
  • Don't get discouraged; keep looking and trying!

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Labor/Employment

Andy Levin
Director, Voice@Work Campaign, AFL-CIO

Recommended courses:

  • Constitutional law
  • Labor law
  • Employment law
  • Administrative law
  • Federal courts
  • Do clinical work of whatever kind most interests you.

Other advice:

  • Also, in terms of my personal experience, getting close to professors was important. I was close to Deborah Anker and got involved in creating a clinical project to help Haitian refugees in the Boston area seek asylum after the coup in Haiti. After I took Labor Law 2nd year, Professor Weiler became the general counsel to the Commission on the Future of Labor-Management Relations created by President Clinton. I got Professor Weiler to hire me as a researcher and ultimately I went into the U.S. Labor Dept. full time after graduation as the (lone!) staff attorney of the commission.

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Municipal Law

Kate Cook
Assistant Corporation Counsel, City of Boston Law Department

Recommended courses:

  • Local government law
  • Federal courts - It was incredibly challenging, but it forever changed my understanding of the state and federal governments and courts, and gave me a new and nuanced understanding of the constitution. From home rule legislation to civil rights actions, understanding the dynamic between the federal courts and state courts is critical to working for the City.
  • Constitutional law
  • I also recommend any class with Lani Guinier. I took her year-long critical perspectives on race, class and gender and the law, and her spirit and creative thinking tools serve me well in tackling hard problems--with clients, colleagues, opposing counsel, and policy issues.
  • I would also add Administrative law, which like federal courts enhanced my understanding of the different branches of government, and helps me think critically about policy and lawmaking authority, etc. I studied this with Professor Barron who focused a lot on the division of labor in the three branches, and the struggles over authority between executive and legislative branches. This struggle is of interest to any lawyer working in government, especially for a municipal lawyer whose office by charter represents both the executive and legislative branches.
  • Finally, Charles Ogletree's legal defense clinical provided me with so many skills I draw upon regularly: my first courtroom experience, exposure to the problems of race and poverty in Boston, the neighborhood aspect of Boston, and the value of public service.

Other advice:

  • Do a clinical even though it takes a lot of time; it's so worth it.
  • Write on a journal
  • Professors Frug & Barron are doing interesting work in my field. Professor Barron was and continues to be particularly helpful as a mentor and provides guidance. I also consider Professors Guinier, Ogletree, Minow and Meltzer mentors.

Gerald Frug
Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Recommended courses:

  • Take our local government courses here at Harvard Law School. We offer Local Government Law, seminars that differ every year (next year: Comparative Local Government Law and International Local Government Law), and, often, courses on Community Economic Development (not next year).
  • Enroll in courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the MIT Urban Planning School. The GSD and MIT courses vary from year to year. But a number of people on both those faculties are interested in helping our students. (We have a joint degree with GSD in Urban Planning, but not with MIT.)
  • David Barron and I both concentrate in this area. David and I are working hard to set up a special clinical program for Local Government; now, we offer a clinical component to the Local Government Law course.

Other advice:

  • David Barron and I are also very interested in advising and otherwise helping students in this area.

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National Security

Professor Philip Heymann
James Barr Ames Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Recommended courses:

  • Heymann/Richardson - seminar on comparative responses to domestic terrorism.
  • Professor Rosenberg is in charge of a small clinical with the DOJ National Security Division that is a great opportunity.
  • Recommended teachers (classes vary by semester): Jack Goldsmith, Ryan Goodman, Alan Dershowitz
  • Check at the Kennedy School for classes on foreign policy and terrorism. Good contact people there include Juliette Kayyem, Graham Allison, and Ash Carter.

Other advice:

  • Join the National Security and the Law student group - contact person Lindsay Rodman.
  • Summer at the State Department, Department of Defense, CIA, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), NSA, DOJ National Security Division, DOJ Office of Legal Counsel, or the FBI. 1L summer is an especially good time to do this.
  • When the administration changes, it will be a great time to look for special assistant jobs in the national security area.
  • Think tanks in DC are a possibility, but they often require experience in the area. The Bar Association has various national security committees that would be good to be a part of - for example, the Bar of the City of New York has a good section.
  • It may be of minor help to do international work with a firm, but, since it would likely be commercial, it may be very small help.

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Poverty Law

Wendy Pollack
Director, Women's Law and Policy Project Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law

Recommended courses:

  • A clinical course that gives students direct responsibility for low-income clients is a must. The direct service was a valuable experience and having that experience during the school year freed me up to pick impact litigation work over direct service during the summer.
  • Constitutional Law
  • Gender Discrimination
  • Administrative Law
  • Accounting
  • Tax
  • Legal History
  • One or two substantive law courses, like international human rights, race relations, gender violence and the law, or disability rights.
  • One or two theory courses like theory and practice of the public lawyering.
  • One or two process courses, like community action and alternative dispute resolution.
  • The course on the federal budget process also piqued my interest, although I doubt that usefulness of that course would outweigh other options.
  • I never took any corporate law or related courses (except for tax), and I believe that was a correct choice.

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Reproductive Issues

Charu Chandrasekhar
Staff Attorney Fellow, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project

Recommended courses:

  • Federal Courts
  • Advanced Civil Procedure
  • Advanced Constitutional Law
  • First Amendment (reproductive rights is all about separation of church and state these days!)
  • Taxation: I feel really strongly about this one: tax policy affects absolutely every single social justice issue (some examples: child care deductions; the absence of marital deductions for same-sex couples; the impact of the mortgage deduction on urban planning policy), and public interest types are unnecessarily scared of this topic/incorrectly write it off as a "corporate" topic, when fluency in this language is needed to engage meaningfully in social policy debates.
  • Corporations
  • Civil Rights Litigation
  • Seminars like "reproductive rights in the law" are nice to have, but don't really teach you about the nuts and bolts of litigation -- and it consists of stuff you would pick up in your own in a reproductive rights job.

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Women's Rights

Lenora M. Lapidus
Director, ACLU Women's Rights Project

Recommended courses:

  • Constitutional Law
  • An advanced Constitutional Law seminar
  • Administrative Law
  • Federal Courts
  • Appellate Courts
  • Supreme Court Litigation
  • Child advocacy
  • Family law
  • Employment discrimination
  • Evidence
  • Gender violence/sexual violence
  • Housing law & policy
  • International human rights/human rights advocacy
  • Intro to trial advocacy
  • Law and public policy
  • Poverty policy law & practice
  • Race relations
  • Reproductive rights
  • There are many other courses that students with particular interests - for example in free speech, in lesbian and gay rights, in immigrant rights - should take.

Other advice:

  • I would recommend joining the legal aid bureau or doing substantial clinical work.
  • I believe that if you follow your passion, and take courses that move you, that is a better way to spend your three years at Harvard than trying to take the "right" courses.
  • I would also recommend the following professors: Elizabeth Bartholet, Janet Benshoof, Lani Guinier, Martha Minow, Charles Ogletree, Larry Tribe.

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Voting Rights/Campaign Reform

Trevor Potter
President and General Counsel, Campaign Legal Center

Recommended courses:

  • Election law
  • Campaign finance law
  • First amendment law
  • Voting rights law

Other advice:

  • Litigation experience is very helpful.

Kevin Deeley
Attorney, Federal Election Commission

Recommended courses:

  • Election law courses
  • Administrative law
  • Constitutional law
  • Legislation/legislative process
  • Federal courts
  • Any kind of public lawyering class or clinical
  • Possibly local government law
  • I'd also recommend doing an independent clinical working for some of the many election law groups (especially if there aren't any election law classes right now). In the campaign finance area, there's the Campaign Legal Center, the Brennan Center for Justice, the National Voting Rights Institute, and others, and there are lots of other groups that focus on other issues such as candidate ballot access and voter access.

Other advice:

  • I would just encourage you to get exposure to the field in any way you can while in law school: summer jobs, clinicals, RA for profs in the field, write about it for your journal, your third-year paper. Obviously everything you do in law school doesn't have to be focused on it, but just take advantage of some of these.

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