Enrollment in this clinic will fulfill the HLS JD pro bono requirement.

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 spring clinical credit, which will be conducted remotely.
In addition, students may enroll in a 2nd optional spring term clinical credit, also remote, as well as a 2 credit winter term 2023 clinical in which they will do on-site work in Ghana. Finally, students have the option to travel to Ghana during Spring Break of 2023 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 Nov 1, 2022 if you wish to explore the Winter Term 2023 clinical option. (See the course description below for further details about the Winter Term clinical requirements.) You may add the 1 optional remote spring term clinical credit by the spring term drop/add deadline and choose to do pro-bono work in Ghana by March 1, 2023.

Required Class Component: Making Rights Real: The Ghana Project (2 spring classroom credits). This clinic and course are bundled; your enrollment in the clinic will automatically enroll you in the required course.

Additional Pre-/Co-Requisites: None.

By Permission: Yes. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis up until December 10, 2022. Students who are interested in winter term 2023 must be in contact with Prof. White before November 1, 2022.

Add/Drop Deadline: December 2, 2022. Students who are admitted after this deadline will still be permitted to enroll.

LLM Students: LLM students may apply to the clinic.

Placement Site: Ghana.

The clinical work will build on a partnership between Professor White, Harvard law students, and University of Ghana Law School faculty and students to do human rights work on socioeconomic equity in Ghana’s underserved rural North. The specific goal of this year’s clinic will be to assist community members to document deep socioeconomic inequity in the field and take part in participatory design of law reform campaigns. Our community-based partners use multilayered 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 organizations widely recognized for their creative work. The spring term’s remote activities will include briefings of partners, stakeholder workshops, interviews with government officials and others, collaborative activities with Ghana School of Law faculty and students, presenting drafts of advocacy and policy documents, and more.

Students who enroll in the optional Winter Term, 2023 clinical, outlined above, must, by November 1, 2022, contact Professor White. Then, by December 10, in consultation with her and our Ghanaian partners, each must develop a clinical project which they do on-site in Ghana. The project must be closely related to our Spring Term clinical work. The students with approved projects will then, with program funding, travel to Ghana to work with supervision from our on-site partners and remote faculty supervision from Professor White. Winter Term clinical students will write clinical papers when they return and play leading roles as the clinical work continues remotely during Spring term.

Admission to the Spring term academic and clinical components is determined together, by permission of the instructor. To apply, students should submit, by Dec. 10, a two-page double spaced statement of interest and a one-page CV to the clinical office (clinical@law.harvard.edu) cc/ed to Professor White (lwhite@law.harvard.edu) and her Faculty Assistant, Ellen Keng (ekeng@law.harvard.edu). Accepted candidates will be notified by Dec. 12 and enrolled in the clinic and clinical course by the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs on a rolling basis.