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Clinical Law Program provides 'critical' opportunities for students to be lawyers
By Sarah Bello
During the first two years of law school, students learn to think like a lawyer.
Willamette’s Clinical Law Program teaches them to be a lawyer, offering the chance to gain practical skills while taking ownership of real legal cases.
Students’ work in the clinics is heavily supervised by professors who are active and licensed attorneys. Current clinic offerings include hands-on learning in Immigration Law and Trusts and Estates.
CREATING ESTATE PLANS FROM START TO FINISH
Growing up in a small town, Professor Susan Cook JD’96 spent her summers working as an assistant at a local attorney’s office. When a friend’s parents tragically died, helping with their probate case piqued her interest in the field of estate planning and elder law.
Although she attended Willamette Law imagining herself as a tax attorney, her initial interest won out, and she pivoted toward working in public assistance and with underserved populations.
Following her graduation, she practiced privately in Salem, then joined Willamette as an adjunct professor teaching the Elder Law course in 2000. In 2012, she began teaching in the Trusts and Estates Clinic. After years of teaching in addition to her practice, she became a full-time member of the faculty in 2021. She now runs the Trusts and Estates Clinic herself.
WORKING WITH THE GRAND RONDE TRIBE
Around 2012, Cook was introduced to the Grand Ronde Tribe northwest of Salem. Chief Justice Edwin Peterson, distinguished jurist-in-residence at Willamette Law, had a contact there who was hoping to find members some help with estate planning services.
To begin working with them, Cook had to gain their confidence. She started having students in the clinic take tribal members on as clients, building to about 10-15% of the clinic’s output before 2020.
“It’s not easy, because tribal members often don’t trust lawyers or government. They’ve been treated badly,” she explains. “In order to cultivate trust with them, really it was necessary to go to them and be present there, and that takes time, a few years to build up.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic happened, most work with the tribe took a pause. She and her students had to renew the relationship in the Summer of 2022, and since then, it has taken off. Last year, 14 out of 32 plans completed were for tribal members.
“Now, except for one or two cases out of 30, all of our cases are tribal,” Cook says, “and we have 60 members on the waitlist.”
Being able to get hands-on, practical experience, while also filling the needs of the tribe, was impactful for Justin Roney JD’23
“Probably the biggest question we got was, ‘How much is this going to cost?’” Roney says. “We were lucky enough to say ‘It’s free, you just have to come to meetings and answer some questions.’ They were clients who were really grateful that you were doing something for them.”
When a tribal elder learned he had a terminal disease, he knew he wanted to get his estate in order. Without much time, Ryan Foxx JD’23 worked through winter break in 2022 to help him accomplish his goal.
The clinic helped solidify Foxx’s interest in the Trusts and Estates field of law, while also providing a sense of giving back to others.
“Out of my six clients, four were from the tribe. All of them were a joy to work with,” he says. “It’s probably the thing I had the most fun with in law school so far — actually working with clients, getting them what they needed and seeing how happy they were. They mentioned it gave them a lot of peace of mind.”
REAL LAWYERING EXPERIENCE
While in the clinic, Roney, Foxx and other students were given multiple clients and held meetings in the first few weeks of class. Their work consisted of drafting wills and durable power of attorney forms, writing advance directives for health care decision-making, and creating trusts, if appropriate. Cook says students know they will work harder in clinic than in a normal course.
While she supervises and is there to answer questions, she empowers students to be the lawyers they aspire to be.
“This is one area where there’s a lot of value in making mistakes,” Cook says. “I like to say I’m throwing students into the ‘deep end,’ but they have a life preserver. I may let them flop around a little — there’s so much value in that.”
Roney agrees with that analysis and says it was the best way to learn, rather than taking baby steps.
“We learn how to be a lawyer in class, but we don’t do that practical side of things,” he says. “Class over the last two years has built us up for that, and you don’t think you’re ready until you do it.”
As far as students’ willingness to prepare to be a lawyer, clinic offers the time if they are so inclined, Cook says.
“These are really self-driven students,” she says, “doing such good work for the world.”
REBUILDING THE IMMIGRATION LAW CLINIC
Professor Beth Zilberman joined the faculty in Summer 2022 to launch the Immigration Law Clinic and strengthen immigration course offerings.
“A lot of asylum law is based on the persecution that occurred during the Holocaust. The idea of helping people seeking a safe life was always part of what I wanted to do to help make the world a better place.”
— Professor Beth Zilberman
As a student at Boston College School of Law, Zilberman participated in her own Immigration Clinic. After finding the first-year curriculum difficult to engage with, she says it was the best experience.
“Immigration Clinic was a pivotal turning point in my law school career,” she says. “A lot of students find that in clinic.”
In Willamette’s Immigration Clinic, four to eight students work on humanitarian-based cases. They represent clients seeking asylum for persecution suffered abroad, individuals who have survived domestic violence, or people who have been victims of trafficking. The students conduct interviews, plan a course of action, prepare pleadings, complete research and analysis, and attend hearings, all while under the safety net of Zilberman’s watchful eye.
Alondra Duran JD’23 took the Immigration Clinic course last fall to prepare for a future legal career in human rights.
“I feel the clinic has given me the practical experience I needed to feel empowered in pursuing a potential career in immigration,” Duran says. “That’s because I had a balance between the independence in handling my own caseload and the guidance from my professor in teaching us how to become the most effective and impactful attorney we can be for our client.”
Although the work is challenging and most cases aren’t completed in a semester, Duran says giving immigrants a ‘jump-start’ to their cases is gratifying.
Both Duran and Zilberman say the hands-on knowledge gained in the clinic can be key to students’ eventual success as attorneys, regardless of whether they intend to practice immigration law. The law can be complex, but the skills they use can translate into other areas of law, as well, Zilberman explains.
“It’s critical for them to have some sort of experiential learning opportunity before becoming lawyers. The clinic is a great place to get that before entering the real world,” she says. “Having that firsthand experience where they really are in control sets them up to have more confidence in their abilities in the future.”
A PASSION FOR IMMIGRATION LAW
Zilberman came to Willamette Law after directing and teaching in Immigration Law Clinics at other institutions, including the law schools at the University of Arkansas, where she first met Willamette Law Dean Brian Gallini, and the University of Washington. Originally from the West Coast, she was thrilled to return and share her passion with students in Salem.
Her interest in immigration law stems from her personal background as a Jewish woman and a post-undergraduate stint at a San Francisco nonprofit. While there, she observed lawyers helping international clients with gender-based asylum claims after they escaped persecution. She also saw a way she could help the world.
“A lot of asylum law is based on the persecution that occurred during the Holocaust,” she says. “The idea of helping people seeking a safe life was always part of what I wanted to do to help make the world a better place.”
At Willamette, Zilberman is pleased that the Immigration Clinic fits squarely into the law school’s goals. Public service and advocacy are at the core of immigration law, and they make up two of the College’s five Signature Strengths, areas in which the curriculum is particularly robust and continuing to grow.
The Fall of 2022 included a successful soft launch for the Immigration Clinic, and it has proven so successful that the school will be adding another full-time professor, Sarah Purce, to the clinic in Fall 2023.
“From my first visit to Willamette, I felt a strong sense of community, seeking justice and a passion for public service that really excited me,” Zilberman says. “I’ve been so impressed with the students’ capacity for doing good work and doing good work for the world. It’s a perfect fit.”
