Immigrant & Non-Citizen Rights

In addition to the set of legal skills which are taught in all of our clinical programs, the INRC emphasizes the following distinctive elements of public interest practice in our fieldwork and classroom instruction:

Policy Advocacy: We believe strongly that excellent public interest lawyers must have basic policy advocacy skills, such as knowledge of legislative drafting, framing techniques, grassroots lobbying methodologies, and media advocacy, to complement litigation expertise.

Participatory Litigation: Because we litigate with the goal of furthering the mobilization of our clients for social and economic justice, we contextualize traditional legal skills in a participatory framework and expect our students to work with clients as collaboratively as possible.

Know Your Rights and Community Education: As part of a law school that is firmly rooted in New York City's neighborhoods, we think it is essential to train students to engage in know-your-rights and community education programs, especially ones that can be constructed to be sustained by our community-based collaborators.

Lawyers and Client Mobilization: We teach student lawyers to work with community-based organizers because we believe that lawyering alone will not advance social and economic justice. Through these collaborations, we explore the strategic and ethical challenges posed by a mode of practice that aims to mobilize clients, in addition to asserting legal rights and defenses on their behalf.

Strategies for Social and Economic Justice: Because the clinic immerses students in multiple modes of legal practice, we closely examine the strategic choices facing public interest lawyers engaged in larger struggles for justice.