Public Education Policy and Consulting Clinic

Application Deadline: April 8, 2016

This clinic requires a semester away in New York City.

This clinic is offered in Fall 2016 and Spring 2017. Students should indicate which semester they are applying for in their application. Applications are due by 5pm on April 8, 2016 regardless of which semester you are applying for.

For more information about this clinic, please review the clinic description in the HLS Course Catalog.

Students will be notified of acceptances on April 25, 2016 and will be asked to make a firm commitment to the Clinic by May 9, 2016.

Placement Site: Columbia University in NYC.

Introduction

The United States is in the midst of a massive restructuring of public-sector service delivery. Staffed by broadly interdisciplinary teams of accomplished and motivated professionals, the most successful of these new federal, state and local reforms are replacing outmoded public bureaucracies with “learning organizations” committed to using public problem-solving techniques to enhance the will and capacity of public agencies to improve the life chances of the nation’s most underserved populations. Nowhere are these changes more important and promising, yet also challenging and controversial, than in the nation’s public school systems.

This full-semester interdisciplinary Clinic brings together upper-level graduate students in law, business, education and policy from Harvard, Columbia, Michigan, NYU, Penn, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Yale and other universities to immerse themselves in (i) emerging strategies for K-12 and allied institutional reform; (ii) structured, team-based problem-solving skills that effective organizations use to address the most difficult challenges in public education and many other domains; and (iii) high-priority multi-dimensional consulting projects on behalf of public- and social-sector organizations serving the educational and related needs of children.

Enrollment is by application and is limited to rising 2L and 3L students.

If you are interested in participating in this clinic (in either the fall or spring semester), please email cprl@law.columbia.edu directly to express your interest.

Students who are interested should then also submit a resume, unofficial transcript, and brief statement of interest (500 word max.) to cprl@law.columbia.edu by 5pm April 8, 2016. CPRL will notify students who have been invited for a video interview with Professor Liebman and the CPRL team. Notification of decisions will be sent via email by April 25, 2016.

Feel free to contact CPRL at cprl@law.columbia.edu with any questions. You also may contact spring 2016 HLS participant John Wheeler (jwheeler@jd16.law.harvard.edu) and fall 2015 HLS participant Jonathan Wall (jwall@jd16.law.harvard.edu) for more information. Accepted students will be enrolled in the clinic and associated course component by the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs.