The Jeanette Lipman Children's Defense Clinic

The Jeanette Lipman Children's Defense Clinic is a litigation-oriented clinic that focuses primarily on the needs of indigent children who are before the court on delinquency or immigration matters and post-conviction challenges for individuals originally sentenced to prison when they were minors. In her more than 20 years of criminal practice, Clinical Professor and Director, Julie McConnell, has served as both a prosecutor and a public defender. Additionally, she serves as an expert for the Institute for Justice and Rule of Law in Valetta, Malta and is a frequent CLE speaker across the country. She often involves students in projects related to that work.  

In Clinic cases, she guides students through the process of providing pro bono holistic client-centered representation to clients, who in many cases, would otherwise be unrepresented. Clinic students will handle a variety of matters, including: conducting trials for youth accused of delinquency offenses; serving as guardians ad litem on cases involving abuse and neglect, foster care, or education issues; representing defendants in post-conviction sentencing challenges; and handling special immigrant juvenile status (SIJS) petitions in juvenile and domestic relations court.

The clinic is open to second- and third-year students, although students must have their third-year practice certificates in order to appear in court. The preferred prerequisites for the course, which can be taken simultaneously, are Family Law & Procedure, Evidence, and Professional Responsibility.

In the clinic, you will focus on courtroom litigation/advocacy; interviewing/counseling; negotiations; research/writing; motions practice, the Rules of Evidence; mitigation; case and sentencing investigation; trauma-informed advocacy; and practice management. Students will hone their skills by conducting numerous hearings throughout the semester in court, before the school board, or the Parole Board. Some of these out-of-court hearings can be handled by second-year students.

Overall Goals of the Jeanette Lipman Children’s Defense Clinic

The Clinic is a six-credit hour, graded course that will provide students with meaningful hands-on legal experience under the professor’s supervision. In the Clinic, you will always have the support needed to guarantee we provide our clients with the highest quality client-centered representation possible. You may serve clients in the following capacities: 

1. As defense counsel in youth delinquency or Child In Need of Services (CHINS) cases. 
2. As pro bono counsel in special immigrant juvenile status (SIJS) and custody cases.  
3. As counsel for guardians in exceptional education cases. 
4. As counsel in school attendance-related cases. 
5. As a guardian ad litem for children in need of best interests advocacy. 
6. As post-conviction counsel.  
7. As counsel in criminal record expungement petitions.   

Clinic experiences will include interviewing and counseling, case planning, fact investigation, motions drafting, brief and report writing, preparing sentencing memoranda, case rounds, simulations in class, courtroom litigation, and presentations before the school or parole board. Students who appear in court must have their third-year practice certificate, but there are also many appropriate roles for second-year students. Either way, you will learn the foundational underpinnings of excellence in client representation and case development. We will study the fundamentals of youth law, and you will have the opportunity to experience the integration of your prior traditional coursework and skills training into your work as student attorneys. The clinic will allow you to further develop your professional identity as an advocate and litigator.  

The clinic has successfully litigated hundreds of criminal and education-related cases in the Central Virginia Area. Judges regularly tell our students that their representation is far superior to that of the typical court-appointed attorney. We provide a trauma-informed defense with the primary goal of doing everything within our abilities to ensure our clients reach adulthood without a criminal record or other collateral consequences. In our post-conviction work, the Clinic has successfully gained early release for more than 35 young serious offenders and litigated numerous resentencing cases. The Clinic has also avoided felony convictions for almost all our youthful clients and helped more than thirty unaccompanied children who fled to the US to escape violence and abuse in their home countries. Our most recent work involves a project to provide representation before the Parole Board for individuals initially sentenced to prison for crimes they committed as youths. Clinic students have earned seven releases through this work. We are now pursuing presidential commutations for four nonviolent marijuana offenders convicted as young people. 

Overall Course Goals and Learning Objectives 

1. To provide an experiential opportunity for law students to improve their practical skills while integrating their knowledge of substantive law and legal analysis. 
2. To help students develop skills that transfer to all legal practices, such as interviewing, counseling, strategic thinking, problem-solving, legal research, fact-gathering, cross-cultural lawyering, and negotiating.  
3. To help students master the procedures of the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, Circuit Court, school boards, the Office of the Pardon Attorney for the President of the United States, and the Virginia Parole Board.    
4. To encourage students to reflect on the nature of their styles of practice and the roles they assume as practitioners to enable them to take responsibility for their learning.  
5. To help students understand the breadth of information in educational and mental health records, how to access that information, and how to harness it to understand your clients and advance their cases.   
6. To deepen students’ understanding of the importance of developing sound strategies for establishing rapport with clients, communicating effectively, obtaining concrete, detailed, and relevant information, and listening actively.  
7. To develop students’ understanding of the major systems that intersect with the criminal legal system.     
8. To help students develop an appreciation for the responsibilities of both prosecutors and defense attorneys concerning discovery and investigation and to prepare them to properly inform their clients about the collateral consequences of juvenile adjudications.  
9. To help students understand the roles everyone plays in juvenile court and how we can all collaborate to ensure the best outcomes for our clients.    
10. To help students learn the foundational underpinnings of excellence in client representation and case development and experience the integration of their prior traditional coursework and skills training.   
11. To teach students to proactively and responsibly manage their case files and practice inputting case data into electronic case systems.  
12. To allow students to become more comfortable negotiating with prosecutors, preparing witnesses for trial, conducting direct and cross-examinations, developing a case theme, developing and arguing motions, preparing opening and closing statements, and developing sentencing arguments. 
13. To integrate consideration of ethical responsibilities in all aspects of practice and encourage students to demonstrate ethical, professional, and responsible behavior.  
14. To discuss systemic injustices and how they impact the clients we serve and allow students to confront these issues when appropriate.   
15. To assist students in identifying and reflecting on value systems and how they impact decision-making.  
16. To assist students in developing their professional identity and reputation.