Juvenile and Special Education Law Clinic

The clinic will never be the same without Professor Mary Hynes. Her spirit lives on, however, in the on-going advocacy provided by the student lawyers here at UDC-DCSL on behalf of children with disabilities and their families in the District of Columbia.

We have a great addition to our clinic during the fall semester. Professor Will McLain has joined with Professor Suji Sutler to teach and supervise cases. Professor Joe Tulman is on sabbatical.

The focus this semester is exciting and challenging. The student lawyers are providing special education advocacy on behalf of D.C. clients in the adult criminal system who fall into all three of the following categories: (1) are currently incarcerated; (2) have already been identified as having educational disabilities; and (3) the educational services they are entitled to are not being provided by either the D.C. Public School System or the correctional facility, pursuant to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The student lawyers include Tracey Ballard, 3L; Charles L. Green, 3L; Edgar A. Vega, 3L; and Gina P. Walton, 3L.

One of the immediate obstacles facing the students is the fact that, due to the closing of the Lorton Correctional Facility, our clients have been relocated to various correctional facilities throughout the country. In addition to providing special education representation for each individual client, the students’ mission is to identify, develop, and implement strategies that address systemic legal, political, and practical barriers created by D.C. Public Schools and Correctional Facilities that prevent educational services from being provided to protected inmates, pursuant to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Each case presents a variety of both real and potential jurisdictional, constitutional, and conflict of laws-related issues.

This is an important cutting-edge venture and probably a first for any law school clinic to undertake in the country. The plan is for each student lawyer to research and document: the issues and problems raised, the statutory laws used to problem-solve, the process and steps each student lawyer has to go through to get results, and what did and didn’t work. The information will be the potential source of future publications and training materials for other law schools and jurisdictions with similar problems. In addition to this project, the clinic will continue to provide special education advocacy for clients involved in the delinquency and neglect systems in the District of Columbia.