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The Clinical Studies Program at William S. Boyd School of Law consists of the Thomas and Mack Legal Clinic and the Externship Program. The Thomas and Mack Legal Clinic provides students the opportunity to represent clients under close faculty supervision in one of our in-house clinic programs: Appellate, Education Advocacy, Family Justice, Immigration, Innocence, and Juvenile Justice. Students are expected to take the lead in all aspects of client representation, including primary responsibility for developing and maintaining the attorney-client relationship, formulating case strategy, and conducting fact investigation, legal research, and trial work.
The pedagogical, research and service goals of the clinic include fostering an understanding of the interconnected nature of the problems and systems—immigration, education, family law, juvenile delinquency, and criminal justice—that operate in the lives of our clients. The clinics thus afford both students and faculty the opportunity to study law in action and inform their academic and policy research.
The Thomas & Mack Legal Clinic is built on a foundation of five core values:
- A commitment to the role of the clinic in advocating for social justice in the community, where national-level research and understanding of best practices are deployed to enhance and improve legal policy and legal practice for Nevada’s vulnerable and underserved communities.
- A commitment to structure clinic teaching in ways that support the scholarship of clinicians genuinely interested in pursuing ambitious scholarly agendas that are interwoven with their clinical work.
- A commitment to provide opportunities for students to experience the practice of law in a well-supervised and academically rigorous program that both prepares them for the practice of law and enables them to critically assess social justice issues.
- A commitment to foster interdisciplinary teaching, practice and research of law and legal institutions through collaboration with other departments and schools at UNLV and nationally.
- A commitment to maintain a clinic structure that promotes collaboration and exploration of connections among different areas of law, social policy and legal practice affecting the clients served in various clinics.
In-House Clinic Courses
The following in-house clinics are offered:
The following in-house clinics will be offered in Spring 2010:
Registration
Students who have completed at least thirty (30) hours of law school course work and are in good academic standing (see "Nevada Supreme Court Student Practice Rule" under Clinical Program Information at the bottom of this page) can be certified for limited practice, which includes conducting investigations, interviewing witnesses, interviewing and counseling clients and representing clients before legislative and administrative bodies. Students with at least forty-five (45) hours of law school course work and are in good academic standing gain experience as lawyers practicing law under the Nevada Supreme Court Rule governing practice by law students. Working under the direct supervision of faculty who are licensed lawyers, students perform the full range of functions necessary for proper client representation, including appearing in the Nevada Courts. (These hours do not apply to the students enrolled in the Mediation Clinic.)
Students interested in registering for a clinic must complete an application form. For application instructions and application form, click below:
Spring 2010 Clinic Application Instructions(PDF)
Spring 2010 Clinic Application Form (PDF)
All prospective clinic students must read the Nevada Supreme Court Student Practice Rule (PDF)
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