HIV/AIDS Law Clinic

The HIV/AIDS Legal Clinic provides comprehensive, holistic legal services to families with AIDS by addressing several HIV/AIDS legal issues at once, including access to public entitlements (primarily Social Security disability benefits and Medicaid), and drafting and executing last will and testaments, powers of attorney and advanced directives. Parents with HIV/AIDS face a wide variety of family-law-related issues, as well, such as the need to plan for the future care of their children by transferring legal custody to another member of their family or to a family friend if and when that parent is no longer able to care for the children.

The project is unique to the District of Columbia and is a testament to the kind of community service UDC-DCSL students provide through their legal training. The clinic is a partner in the Family Ties Project of the Consortium of Child Welfare and works closely with Howard University Hospital's Pediatric AIDS Clinic, Project CARES, Children's National Medical Center, Georgetown University Medical Center's HIV Clinic, Miriam's House, Family and Medical Counseling Services and Damien House, among a variety of other medical and social service providers.

In all cases that involve advocating for clients with HIV/AIDS, students not only use their developing lawyering skills, but also must draw upon their "people skills," their compassion for others and their ability to sort through compelling ethical considerations. Students also have the opportunity to explore interdisciplinary approaches to serving clients by working directly with the hospital and medical clinic case managers who are also assisting these families and who refer the families to the clinic.

All students participate in classroom seminars on substantive areas of HIV/AIDS law, Social Security disability law and family law. Other sessions focus on the development of lawyering skills, such as interviewing, counseling, drafting court pleadings and representing clients in D.C. Superior Court and at Social Security Administration disability hearings before Administrative Law Judges. In addition, class sessions provide students with the ability to understand the nature of the disease, the particular problems of disease and dying with which legal counsel must cope, and the complexities of advocating for people who face various types of prejudice, stigma, and discrimination.