Winter 2024 - Spring 2024 • Clinic
Making Rights Real: The Ghana Project Clinic
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For more information about this clinic, please visit the Clinic Website and
Enrollment in this clinic will fulfill the HLS JD pro bono requirement.
Required Class Component: Making Rights Real: The Ghana Project (2 spring classroom credits). This clinic and course are bundled; your enrollment in this clinic will automatically enroll you in the required course.
Additional Pre-/Co-Requisites: None.
By Permission: Yes. Applications for the winter-spring clinic option are due by October 15th (and will be accepted on a rolling basis up until this deadline). Applications for the spring-only clinic option are due by December 4 (and will be accepted on a rolling basis up until this deadline).
Add/Drop Deadline: November 17, 2023 for winter-spring clinic students; December 8, 2023 for spring-only clinic students.
LLM Students: LLM students may apply to the clinic through the LLM General Clinic Application.
Placement Site: Ghana and HLS.
Clinic students may receive additional pro-bono hours by traveling to Ghana during Spring Break to work with partners on our clinical project on a voluntary basis.
Students are required to enroll in 1-4 spring clinical credits, which will be conducted remotely.
Students may also choose to enroll in a 2 credit winter term clinical in which they will do on-site work in Ghana. Finally, students have the option to travel to Ghana during Spring Break to work on the project for pro-bono hours rather than clinical credit. Travel funding for both of the on-site options will be provided by the program. You are required to contact Prof. White directly (lwhite@law.harvard.edu) by TBD if you wish to explore the Winter Term 2024 clinical option. (See the course description below for further details about the Winter Term clinical requirements.)
The Making Rights Real clinic builds on a partnership between Professor White, Harvard law students, University of Ghana Law School faculty and students, and a Ghanaian civil society organization (CSO) engaged in leading-edge human rights work on educational equity in Ghana’s underserved rural North. Though there may be an opportunity for selected students to travel to Ghana over spring break, this January’s activities will take place through intensive online lawyering activities, including virtual stakeholder meetings and community workshops, interviews with government officials, Ghana School of Law/HLS collaboration. The goal of this year’s clinic will be to assist community members to document and critique experiences of educational inequity and take part in an on-going process legislative and policy reform. Our CSO partner uses multi-layered lawyering strategies, such as legal research and analysis; reviewing and drafting legislation and regulations; strategy mapping; human rights documentation; participatory action research; partner briefings; designing and facilitating grassroots education and empowerment workshops; conducting community meetings; and working with media. Thus, in addition to our specific assignments, the clinic provides students engagement with an organization widely recognized for its creative work.
Admission to the academic and clinical components is determined together, by permission of the instructor. To apply, students should submit a two-page double spaced statement of interest and a one-page CV to the clinical office (clinical@law.harvard.edu) with a cc to Samantha Chaudhry-Muffuletto (smuffuletto@law.harvard.edu). The deadline to apply for the Winter-Spring Clinic is October 15, 2023; the deadline to apply for the Spring Clinic is December 4, 2023. Accepted candidates will be enrolled in the clinic and clinical course by the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs.