Civil Litigation Clinic 2023 Highlights

CLC students Eliz Espinoza and Sophia Vander Kooy after a victory in Denver County Court.

This year, under the supervision of Professor Tammy Kuennen and Clinical Fellow Trent Cromartie, the student attorneys in the Civil Litigation Clinic (CLC) practiced radical client-centeredness. While the CLC typically focuses on cases involving wage, housing and protection order litigation, it expanded this year to include domestic relations, workers compensation, contracts negotiation, replevin and immigration. In collaboration with their clients, students assessed clients’ problems and addressed these issues, regardless of whether the legal solution fell within an area of law known to the student attorneys. The product was a double win: clients received services in areas where typically none is provided pro bono and students spent more of the semester in the sweet spot of learning—just, but not too far, outside their comfort zone. 

In addition to representing individual clients, CLC students engaged in impact work as they collaborated with the Colorado Poverty Law Center to write an amicus brief on behalf of tenants relying upon Colorado’s Warranty of Habitability. They also drafted articles for publication in practitioners’ law journals to educate lawyers about domestic violence, including the importance of context when assessing “imminent threat” in Colorado’s civil protection order act, and the frequency with which pets are held hostage by abusive partners.  

Faculty Highlights

Clinical Fellow Trent Cromartie
Aequitas: Seeking Equilibrium in Title IX, University of Dayton Law Review, Vol. 49, 2023

Professor Tammy Kuennen 
Turning the Tables: How the Accused Deny, Attack, and Reverse, _ WISC. J.  L. GENDER & SOC._ (forthcoming 2023) (with Ailyn Aguilar Quinonez).

Uncharted Violence: Reclaiming Structural Causes in the Power and Control Wheel, 55 ARIZ. ST. L. J. 561 (2023).