Gittis Center for Clinical Legal Studies

Civil Practice Clinic

Students are certified by state and federal courts to represent indigent clients in a broad range of civil litigation where they interview clients, draft legal pleadings,  engage in client counseling and negotiation with opposing parties, and serve as trial counsel in court and administrative proceedings.

Entrepreneurship Legal Clinic

Students provide direct representation to entrepreneurs, businesses, and social entrepreneurs from underserved communities on matters such as business structuring, contract drafting and review, intellectual property, managing employees, negotiating, asset acquisitions and dispositions, business strategy, and regulatory requirements.

Mediation Clinic

Students learn about conflict resolution, creative problem solving, and mediation theory, and then serve as court- or agency-approved mediators in a broad range of court, agency, neighborhood, and campus disputes.

Legislative Clinic

Students study legislative process, statutory drafting, and legislative advocacy, and then work on pending legislation and public policy issues in legislative placements at the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and the Pennsylvania state legislature.

Inter-Disciplinary Child Advocacy Clinic

Students team with medical, nursing, and social policy and practice students to represent vulnerable children in court hearings, participate in developing a plan to serve the child’s best interest, and work with parents, counsel, and relevant agencies to ensure that their clients obtain the services that they need.

Transnational Clinic

Students work with clients across cultures, languages, borders and legal systems in asylum and other immigration cases. Students also engage in human rights advocacy through litigation, legislative and policy initiatives, community organizing and other written and visual legal advocacy tools.

Criminal Defense Clinic

Students get firsthand criminal defense experience trying misdemeanor and felony cases in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and the Philadelphia Municipal Court under the supervision of experienced attorneys from the Defender Association of Philadelphia, one of the nation’s leading public defender organizations.

Lawyering in the Public Interest

Students examine common lawyering themes that confront public interest and pro bono lawyers and participate in simulated exercises taken from actual practice that are specially designed to place students in governance roles of public interest legal advocacy organizations.

Clinical Externships at Diverse Practice Settings

Drawing upon Philadelphia’s vibrant legal community and award winning public interest organizations, students gain academic credit while providing direct legal representation at distinguished organizations, such as the Capital Habeas Unit of the Defender Association of Philadelphia (death penalty representation), the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office (criminal prosecution), Community Legal Services and Philadelphia Legal Assistance (legal aid to the poor), and the Women’s Law Project (gender equality advocacy).