With Professor Walker Sterling returned from her year-long Fulbright, the Criminal Defense Clinic is once again being co-taught by Professors Walker Sterling and Lasch. The Criminal Defense Clinic (CDC) represents indigent members of Denver’s community who are accused of crimes in municipal, misdemeanor, and county courts in and around the Denver area. Typical cases include assault, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, failure to obey a lawful order from a peace officer, disturbing the peace, and harassment. The Criminal Defense Clinic also represents juvenile clients, and has several juvenile court cases as well.
The Sturm College of Law is honored to announce that the Board of Trustees of the University of Denver approved the promotions of seven Denver Law faculty members, effective August 1, 2018: Bernard Chao, Christopher Lasch, and Justin Pidot to the rank of Professor of Law; Kevin Lynch and Lindsey Webb to the rank of Associate Professor of Law, with tenure; and Samantha Galvin and Erin Stearns to the rank of Associate Professor of the Practice of Taxation.
The Environmental Law Clinic (ELC) welcomed two new faculty members this fall. Wyatt Sassman joined the clinic as an assistant professor. Sassman previously clerked for Judge Gilbert S. Merritt on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, worked for the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charleston, South Carolina, and taught in the Appellate Courts Immersion Clinic at Georgetown.
Greetings from Denver Law’s Legal Externship Program!
An integral part of one of the nation’s top ten clinical programs, Denver Law’s Legal Externship Program continues to innovate while keeping our students’ interests, goals, and academic needs first and foremost. With the fall semester fully underway, we are excited to have our largest ever fall student enrollment! As always, students are putting their talents to use across public and private sectors, growing their skills, honing in on their interests, and developing a strong sense of their professional identities, while faculty work tirelessly to support them inside and outside of the classroom.
Greetings from Denver Law’s Legal Externship Program!
I am excited to report that this is a time of tremendous growth for Denver Law externships. In 2016-17, we placed 418 students in more than 520 externships, and worked with over 310 supervisors. Summer enrollment alone increased by 50 percent!
The students in the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic (LITC) have continued to provide successful resolution to IRS and Colorado Department of Revenue issues for more than 90 clients in the fall of 2018. The LITC recently had eight offers in compromise accepted by the IRS. These settlements with the IRS reduced the LITC clients’ tax liabilities by more than $250,000.
Students in DU’s Mediation Practicum are mediating small claims disputes in both Denver County Court and Adams County Courts. They have successfully mediated cases involving construction, remodeling, landscaping, car repair, personal loans, lost luggage and other transportation/travel services disputes.
An important lesson learned in any Civil Litigation Clinic is understanding when litigation is not the answer. In the fall of 2018, students in the Civil Litigation Clinic learned that community solidarity and political action are invaluable tools to help clients solve problems. Students collaborated with the Direct Action Team, a grassroots group of volunteers in the Denver community committed to fighting wage theft. The Team takes “direct action” in the form of confronting employers who refuse to pay wages before, or in lieu of, filing a lawsuit. Pictured below (left to right) are three students, Heather Olin, Elizabeth Ashlee Shaw-Gonzales, and Catie Wightman, along with Professor Kuennen, at a wage theft demonstration in Parker, CO on September 28, 2018.
Of course, litigation sometimes is the answer. Students in the Civil Litigation Clinic also represented several low-income workers in court. In addition, they represented clients in civil protection order litigation against abusive intimate partners, acted as guardians ad litem for children who witness abuse, and defended low-income tenants being evicted from subsidized housing. Pictured below are two third year law students, Will Grumet and Mariham Yaft, on either side of their client after trial in Arapahoe County District Court on September 13, 2018.
Whether litigation or “direct action” is the answer, inter-disciplinary perspective always helps. Students working toward their Psy.D in clinical psychology at DU’s Graduate School of Professional Psychology paired up with students in the Civil Litigation this fall for multi-disciplinary client work. Psy.D students Breanne Slay and Dominique Chao and their supervisor Deborah Fishman, a clinical psychologist and adjunct faculty member of GSPP, joined our team for weekly rounds and ongoing consultation.
The Civil Litigation Clinic also happily welcomed Katie Wallat as a Clinical Teaching Fellow in the fall. Katie comes to us from Georgetown University Law Center’s Community Justice Project and brings particular expertise not just in clinical teaching but in the areas of civil rights, employment discrimination and housing litigation and policy work.
Professor Tammy Kuennen continues to speak in the community and nationally. In October, the Colorado Domestic Violence Offender Management Board invited her to present her current scholarship regarding the impact of sociological and psychological constructs of intimate partner violence on law. In September, Professor Kuennen presented her scholarship at the Clinical Legal Writer’s Workshop at New York University Law School. In August, 2018 she trained guardians ad litemon the issue of intimate partner violence in collaboration with the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center and in October the Law Center awarded her for her pro bono work. In July, Professor Kuennen spoke at Centro Humanitario’s Preventing Wage Theft Training at the University of Colorado, Denver. In June, she co-presented Confronting Tensions Between State Involvement in Domestic Violence Cases & Survivor Autonomy at the Colorado Action in Advocacy Conference with Amy Miller, Executive Director, Violence Free Colorado and Jennifer Eyl, Domestic Violence Program Director, Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center.
