Required Clinic Component: Federal Courts Clinic (2-5 spring clinical credits). This clinic and course are bundled; your enrollment in the clinic will automatically enroll you in this required course.

Additional Co-/Pre-Requisites: None.

By Permission: Yes.

Add/Drop Deadline: N/A – students who enroll in the clinic will be committing for the semester.

This Clinical Seminar accompanies the Federal Courts Clinic. In the Clinic, each student will spend a semester working in the Chambers of a federal judge – usually a court of appeals or district court judge, but also potentially a bankruptcy or magistrate judge.

In the Clinical Seminar, students will share and analyze their experiences in Chambers (to the extent consistent with confidentiality requirements), with the goal of gaining a fuller understanding of overall functioning of the federal courts and the different roles that judges play at different levels in the federal judicial system (as well as the different views different judges have concerning those roles). Students will also discuss the role that clerks/externs do/should play, and other topics concerning the federal judicial system that are raised by the students’ work.

The Clinical Seminar will be taught (and the Clinic directed) by David Zimmer, a Partner in the Supreme Court and Appellate practice at Goodwin Procter, who clerked at both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and who has significant experience practicing before all levels of the federal courts.

Please refer to the clinic description for more information about the application process.