The clinic provides students a hands-on, supervised experience representing a diverse group of clients in legal matters raising First Amendment and religious liberty issues.
As a pro bono program dedicated to building bridges in service to those in need, the clinic focuses on representing members of minority faiths, the vulnerable, and those who serve or support them in our pluralistic society. This includes helping the imprisoned, victims of workplace discrimination, and those facing obstacles in ministering to migrants, the poor, and their communities.
Admission to the Religious Freedom Clinic is by permission of the Clinic Director, Josh McDaniel. Students should submit an application to jmcdaniel@law.harvard.edu, 2024-25 deadline TBD. (Applications after that date will be considered if additional seats become available.) The application should be in a combined PDF that includes a resume (with expected graduation date) and short (250 words or less) statement of interest describing the student’s reasons for applying to the clinic, relevant coursework, and which semesters (fall and/or spring) the student is applying for.
How to Apply
The Religious Freedom Clinic is offered in the Fall and Spring semesters. You can learn about the required clinical course component, clinical credits and the clinical application process by reading the course catalog description and exploring the links in this section.
Application deadline: May 8, 2024. For transfer students and LLMs, the deadline is July 19, 2024.
Meet the Instructors
Josh McDaniel
Assistant Clinical Professor of Law
Josh is the Director of Harvard Law School’s Religious Freedom Clinic, a pro bono program that gives students a hands-on, supervised experience representing a diverse group of clients in First Amendment and religious freedom cases. Before entering clinical teaching, Josh clerked for the Honorable Cormac J. Carney of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and the Honorable Jay S. Bybee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In addition to serving as a staff attorney in the clinic’s inaugural semester in 2020, he was previously a trial litigator at Munger, Tolles & Olson and an appellate litigator at Horvitz & Levy, where he specialized in representing individual and organizational clients in both commercial and civil rights cases, with particular expertise in First Amendment and religious freedom issues. Josh earned his B.A., magna cum laude, from Brigham Young University and graduated first in his class from UCLA School of Law.
Parker Knight
Clinical Instructor
Parker is an instructor at the Religious Freedom Clinic, where he guides teams of students representing clients in First Amendment and statutory religious liberty cases. His research focuses on the relationship between legal texts and legal reasoning, especially the influence of rule structures on interpretive methods. Before joining the clinic, Parker clerked for the Honorable David J. Porter of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and, as an associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, litigated First Amendment cases in the Supreme Court of the United States and federal district and appellate courts. Parker received his J.D. from Harvard Law School. He holds an LLM from the University of Cambridge, where he studied legal philosophy, and a B.A., magna cum laude, from Fordham University, where he studied mathematics, economics, and philosophy in the university’s honors program.
Steven Burnett
Clinical Instructional Fellow
Steven is an instructional fellow at the Religious Freedom Clinic. Before joining the clinic, he clerked in his hometown, San Diego, CA, for the Honorable Patrick J. Bumatay on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he participated in Stanford’s Religious Liberty Clinic, and was Managing Editor of the Stanford Law & Policy Review. Before law school, Steven was a software engineer at Google, first in Mountain View, CA, and then in New York City. Steven received a B.S. in Physics and a B.A. in Linguistics from Stanford University.
Kathryn Mahoney
Clinical Instructional Fellow
Katie is a fellow for the Religious Freedom Clinic. Before joining the clinic, she clerked for the Honorable Amul R. Thapar on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she served as an Editor of the Yale Law Journal, Co-President of the Catholic Law Students Association, and Executive Vice President of the Yale Federalist Society. Before law school, Katie worked at the New Jersey Reentry Corporation, conducting research and developing programs to provide services to prisoners following their release. She received her B.A. in Philosophy from Cornell University.
Hannah Curtis
Program Coordinator
Hannah serves as the Program Coordinator. During which she assists in managing the administration of the Religious Freedom Clinic, performs research in support of its cases, coordinates clinic activities and clinic-sponsored events, and provides administrative support to clinic staff and students.
Hannah graduated with a B.A., cum laude, in English from University of Dallas in May, 2023.
In the News
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In a remote corner of Ohio, a traffic law brings Harvard to the aid of the Amish
New safety measures mandate flashing lights on buggies, a requirement some conservative Amish say violates their faith. Harvard University Law School agrees with them.
August 27, 2024
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McDaniel named assistant clinical professor at Harvard Law School
“It has been a great honor to teach and work with Harvard Law students in the Religious Freedom Clinic. I’ve seen them accomplish amazing results for their clients and shape the law in positive ways. I can’t wait to see what they go on to do in this important and much-needed work,” said McDaniel.
February 13, 2024
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Fighting for the freedom to practice religion in prison
Faculty and students in Harvard Law’s Religious Freedom Clinic work on a pair of cases seeking justice for incarcerated Rastafarians whose dreadlocks were shorn by prison officials
July 18, 2023
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‘Religious freedom for all’
“It’s incredibly special to find a group of devoutly religious people who are eager to learn from each other’s faiths and who stand for religious freedom for its own sake.”
May 23, 2023