LawClinic.TV

The Process is the Punishment

In this clip I start from the title of Malcolm Feeley's classic study of the lower criminal courts, The Process is the Punishment.  First published in 1979, the book remains a defining text for anyone interested in how minor crimes are treated in America's courts.   It captures a central truth for most of the clients we represent in Fordham's Criminal Defense Clinic.  Whatever happens in the case, most of our clients receive their punishment before their case is resolved.  The night they spend in jail before their arraignment is likely to be the only jail time that results from the case.   Their repeated court appearances are likely to be all the contact they will have with the court, as so many of the cases are eventually dismissed or resolved with dispositions that result in no formal sanction.

Although I don't say this in the clip, I am not sure it is a bad thing that there is frequently no punishment beyond the process of resolving the case.  Some data suggests that almost all the crime control benefits of the enforcement of minor crimes (to the degree there are crime control benefits) come from arrest, with conviction and sanctions flowing from conviction adding very little, if anything.  In this era of serious collateral consequences, when people can lose their jobs, apartments or immigration status after conviction of a minor offense, letting the process be the punishment may make for more proportionate and effective punishment.

But as I go on to note in the clip, the punishment exacted by the process can be very onerous and seem illegitimate.  So many of our clients could receive a summons and a predictable sanction could flow from that summons, but that is not how it is done in New York City.  Many folks spend the night in jail after a minor transgression, which can shift the focus from their transgression to the system's overreaction.  From a teaching standpoint, there is much to be learned from the highly charged hours my students spend with their new clients, soon after their arrest.  From the policy perspective, I am not sure it is the best way to run a criminal justice system.

-- Ian Weinstein

Fordham, Law School, Clinical Legal Education, Law Clinic, Pro Bono Work, Legal Education, Legal Pedagogy, Teaching Law, Student Lawyers, Law Student

Representing Groups - Another Opportunity to Think About Working With Non-Lawyers

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Fordham's Urban Policy Clinic was founded by my colleague Professor Liz Cooper. As Liz notes in a previous post, her clinic typically represents groups. That is just one aspect of the work that makes it different from the single client oriented litigation style clinic, such as the Criminal Defense Clinic I supervise with Prof. Cheryl Bader. 

In Liz's practice, as is often the case with my colleague Brian Glick's Community Economic Development Clinic, which is described in this post, lawyers face the challenges, and reap the benefits, of group decision making. They must think about who speaks for the group and how decisions are made. Lawyers can play a key role in facilitating effective collaboration among group participants, many of whom bring perspectives and areas of expertise which the lawyers must understand and appreciate. While our colleagues in our interdisciplinary clinic have thought more about interdisciplinary work than many of us, I think all of us are aware of the power of reaching beyond the law. 

In this clip, Sara Upton, a student in the Urban Policy Clinic, talks about her work on a team that represented a group seeking policy reform. The group she worked with was Fordham's Interdisciplinary Center for Family and Child Advocacy, a collaboration among our Law School, our Graduate School of Social Services and the Psychology Department of our Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Sara reflects upon how fulfilling it was for her to work with people who came from a variety of backgrounds to accomplish a common goal.

I think that is a common experience for all of us who work with other professionals to solve our clients' problems. As much as I respect the powerful role the law plays in
America, so many problems clients bring to lawyers have significant non-legal elements. The law often provides an entry point or a focus for action, but it does not provide the full answer. That is why so many of us in the Fordham clinical program think about interprofessional collaboration and urge our students to explore the challenges and rewards of working with people outside our own profession.

-- Ian Weinstein

Fordham, Law School, Clinical Legal Education, Law Clinic, Pro Bono Work, Legal Education, Legal Pedagogy, Teaching Law, Student Lawyers, Law Student, Interdisciplinary Clinic, Urban Policy, Child Advocacy, Family Advocacy, Collaboration

Students in a Policy Clinic - Seeing the Big Picture

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Here is Sara Upton, a student in Professor Elizabeth Cooper's Urban Policy Clinic,  describing one of her projects in the clinic. Sara does a fine job describing her work and communicating how much the experience meant to her, so I need not belabor that. But I will say that as I listened to Sara, I was struck by how brave she and her colleagues must be to take on such unstructured problems and work through the process of creating useful solutions.

It seems to me that the policy lawyer faces the awesome blank-sheet-of-paper-problem: what is the best, or least a better way, to deal with this issue? In my work, criminal defense, the stakes can be high and creativity is always required, if not always found, but we know we will defend our clients in court and the case will turn on law of some sort or historical facts. The policy lawyer's choices, however, can range across many kinds of institutions and modes of analysis. From my perspective, it seems daunting and I admire Sara and all the students who take on these challenges. 

-- Ian Weinstein 

Fordham, Law School, Clinical Legal Education, Law Clinic, Pro Bono Work, Legal Education, Legal Pedagogy, Teaching Law, Student Lawyers, Law Student, Urban Policy

Lawyers as Policy Advocates - Change at the Wholesale Level

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Here is my dear pal and visionary colleague Professor Elizabeth Cooper, who runs our Urban Policy Clinic. Toward the end of this clip Liz mentions, in passing, a legislative success from last spring. Her modesty is typical and becoming, but if you know anything about the New York State Legislature, you will appreciate how extraordinary an achievement it was for Liz, her students and her colleagues to shepherd a piece of legislation through Albany in about five months. 

The bill made it possible for young people between the ages of 18 and 21, who had been in foster care and whose legal guardians had died, to receive all the state benefits to which they were entitled while they remained in college. Until this legislative fix was enacted, those young people were denied benefits only because there was no adult through whom the benefits could flow. It was a wonderful piece of work by Liz, her students and the groups with which they worked.

-- Ian Weinstein 

Fordham, Law School, Clinical Legal Education, Law Clinic, Pro Bono Work, Legal Education, Legal Pedagogy, Teaching Law, Student Lawyers, Law Student, Urban Policy, New York State Legislature, Foster Care, Albany