The Education Law Clinic is part of a program called the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI), a nationally recognized collaboration between Harvard Law School and Massachusetts Advocates for Children (MAC), whose mission is to ensure that children impacted by family violence and other adverse childhood experiences succeed in school. To achieve this mission, TLPI uses multiple strategies to seek remedies for individual children, as well as laws and policies that provide schools with the knowledge and resources they need to meet the needs of all children. TLPI’s advocacy is based on interdisciplinary research and collaboration across a wide array of professional disciplines: education, psychology, neurobiology, medicine, social work, and public policy. Students in the Education Law Clinic help further TLPI’s mission by employing knowledge from these fields to advance the interests of traumatized children through legal representation and in the policy arena.

Student Work

Direct Client Representation

Students in the fall Clinic provide direct representation to parents/guardians whose children have been affected by family violence or other adverse experiences and who are not getting the special education services they need. Students receive direct one-to-one mentorship and develop a working knowledge of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Massachusetts special education laws.

Students also:

• interview and counsel client;
• conduct factual investigation and legal research;
• develop case strategies;
• collect and analyze school records;
• draft discovery and pleadings;
• work with experts; and
• negotiate with school personnel at team meetings.

In cases scheduled for full administrative hearings, students appear for pre-hearing motions and conduct direct and cross-examinations of witnesses. In addition to learning the basic knowledge and skills associated with special education practice, clinical students gain an understanding of the impact that trauma from exposure to violence can have on a student’s learning and behavior and then factor this understanding into the analysis of a child’s special education needs. The legal remedies law students obtain through their representation have a tremendous positive impact on the lives of individual children.

Systemic Advocacy

Spring Clinic students participate in projects that utilize TLPI’s multiple advocacy strategies (legislative advocacy, administrative advocacy, community outreach, report writing, coalition building, and media strategies) in order to transform systems that affect the lives of children and families.

Past students have:

• organized legislative briefings at the Massachusetts State House on the impact of trauma on learning;
• helped draft legislation;
• made presentations to expert evaluators and child welfare attorneys on special education law;
• organized a domestic violence shelter outreach program; and
• collaborated in a statewide legislative campaign to promote children’s mental health.