For the Social Justice Community
Seattle University School of Law is dedicated to the twin priorities of academic excellence and education for justice. To that end, ATJI works to empower law students to engage in social justice work while ensuring they are receiving a quality experience that enhances their legal education. ATJI also wants to ensure that our students' work meets the community’s needs and furthers ongoing social justice work.
We realize that social justice advocates are very busy serving the legal needs of the underrepresented and marginalized and may not have time and resources to determine how law students can help them. As such, ATJI is available to work with advocates to offer ideas for how to utilize law student volunteers to help further the advocates' work. Please do not hesitate to contact ATJI for help with developing student volunteer opportunites.
For more information about ATJI and Seattle University School of Law's other social justice programs, please see our Law Student's Guide to Finding Social Justice.
Get to Know Our Students
Many of our students tell us they were drawn to the Law School because of its strong commitment to social justice, talented and diverse faculty, and top-ranked Legal Research and Writing program. As the largest and most diverse law school in the Pacific Northwest, the Law School attracts students from across the U.S. (and world!), representing a broad range of cultural, professional and educational backgrounds. Seattle University School of Law is one of the few law schools to offer a part-time program. As a result, a significant number of our students work and have extensive professional experience and practical skills to offer.
The Access to Justice Institute invites you to engage with our law students by utilizing their willingness to serve and apply their legal skills to further your social justice work, and by mentoring or speaking with our students about your social justice law practice.
Involve Students
Volunteer and Internship Opportunities
Do you need law students to help with a research project, assist with community outreach, perform some case investigation? Whether you have a need that is limited to a one-day event or a semester-long project, we can connect law students to you. ATJI would be happy to publicize your volunteer, internship and fellowship opportunities to students via our ATJI listserv, website, the Center for Professional Development's blog and newsletter. If you are interested, download the opportunity form and return it to tanj@seattleu.edu.
If you know you could use law student help but are not sure how best to utilize their skills, please contact us at tanj@seattleu.edu and we can help you structure a great student opportunity.
Partnership Projects with ATJI
To enable all students to succeed in high quality, potentially transformative experiences that call for the direct application of their legal education to addressing real world social justice needs, ATJI is developing Partnership Projects. These projects involve partnerships with various national and local social justice organizations and are aimed to provide quality experiences for students. Partnership Projects, which ATJI is currently developing, involve immigrant advocacy, consumer rights, youth law, language access, child support, Indian estate planning and poverty law. Many of these Partnership Projects will be launched in the 2008-2009 academic year. Please contact us with any ideas you have for collaborations on any potential Partnership Projects!
Post-Graduate Fellowships
Fellowships are a great way to advance your social justice work. Typically, post-graduate fellowships allow you to hire a new lawyer to work on a project addressing a pressing social justice issue. We encourage you to consider our students as a fellow. We have had students selected for the prestigious Equal Justice Works Fellowship program and other highly competitive clerkships and public interest jobs throughout the United States and the world.
We invite you to consider submitting a proposal for a post-graduate fellowship and partnering with one of our students. Our Center for Professional Development’s Public Interest website provides resources on various fellowship programs. If you have already developed a fellowship proposal and are recruiting applicants, please let us know and we will pass on the information to our students!
The Externship Program
The Externship office assists students in securing placements in public legal service agencies and courts that provide real-life experience and promote social justice. Part-time and full-time externships are offered for credit during the Fall, Spring and Summer semesters. Partnering agencies include Columbia Legal Services, King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, Department of Assigned Counsel, Unemployment Law Project, Solid Ground, Legal Action Center, and the Center for Environmental Law & Policy. Additional agencies participating in the externship program can be found on the Externship Sponsors page. If you have questions about whether your agency might be an eligible sponsor or would like additional information, please contact Karen Connors at 206.398.4128, or connorsk@seattleu.edu.
Ronald A. Peterson Law Clinic
The Law Clinic is a functioning law office within the law school that provides 2L and 3L students with the opportunity to earn credit while representing real clients with real problems under the supervision of full-time and adjunct faculty members. For a list of current clinic offerings, go to the Law Clinic.
Referring Cases to the Clinic:
When Clinic faculty select cases, they seek to provide valuable service to clients in need, while also taking into account the need to prepare students properly and to work within the constraints of the academic calendar. Thus, intake tends to be concentrated into short windows of time early in each semester. The Clinic obtains most of its referrals from providers with whom it has ongoing relationships and who are attuned to what the faculty look for in a case. Legal services providers seeking to learn more about the intake criteria of any particular Clinic course or to make a referral should contact the faculty member teaching that course. Individual contact information can be found on the Clinic web site. The Clinic does not encourage providers to send prospective clients directly to the Clinic.
Anyone interested in discussing referral possibilities that do not fit squarely within the description of any clinic course or any aspect of Clinic policy should feel free to contact the Interim Clinic Director, Professor Bryan Adamson any time at badamson@seattleu.edu.
Mentoring or Speaking to Students
If you are interested in serving as a mentor or volunteering with a specific project or program at the Law School, please let us know. Our students relish the opportunity to meet practitioners from the field, and there are numerous ways to connect with them, ranging from one-time events to ongoing projects. Students frequently are looking for attorneys to serve on speaker panels or participate in specific projects. If you are interested, please e-mail tanj@seattleu.edu.
If you are a social justice-minded lawyer looking for law students to help and also happen to be an SU Alumnus, please contact our Office of Alumni Relations as they are eager to connect with you and are always happy to provide further information on how to get involved in the academic and social life of the law school.
We want to hear your feedback!
If you are currently working with one of our students, please tell us about your experience! Please contact any ATJI staff member directly or e-mail James Tan, ATJI Program Assistant at tanj@seattleu.edu .
