Fourteen students shouldered a heavier than usual caseload in the Spring 2007 USF Criminal and Juvenile Clinic and Child Advocacy Clinic, under the direction of Professors Sharon Meadows and Patty Fitzsimmons.

The Criminal and Juvenile Law Clinic students prevailed in a juvenile court trial and obtained a hard-won order to show cause in a case where the police refused to turn over Communications and Dispatch tapes. Students in both clinics collaborated on two cross-over cases. One involved fending off a delinquency order field against a 13-year-old who had previously been in the dependency system. Students in the Child Advocacy Clinic also helped three teenagers become emancipated. Students represented children from newborn to almost 18 years old.

Criminal and Juvenile Law Clinic

Kate Brosgart '07 represented adults and a juvenile on charges that included sexual battery, shoplifting, and vandalism. "I subpoenaed documents, wrote motions I had never heard of, and learned to deal with never filing motions I had worked on for days," she explained.

After three semesters working in the San Francisco Public Defender's office, Martine D'Agostino '07 found that her clinic cases "really came alive. I conducted my own investigations, walking through the events as they happened instead of trying to imagine them based on bare facts in a police report."

Jeremy Valverde '07 was surprised at "how confident clients were in my representation, given that I was still in school." Susie Ra '07 practiced introducing herself to the judge "1,000 times" in her head and did it for real 10 times during the semester. She represented two young men, one caught up in the violence that plagues his neighborhood, the other finding it hard to overcome the cultural and language challenges of being in an immigrant family.

Melanie Brown '07, John McCurley 3L, Kelly Metters '07, Joanna Privratsky 3L, C. Will Schell '07, and Sean Tilton '07 also participated in the clinic.

Child Advocacy Clinic

Riding a bus to an after-school program with one of her clients, Ashley Ein '07 learned that "in addition to being a legal advocate, the dependency attorney is a counselor and source of support for clients."

Lauren Wood '07 and Fitzsimons advocated for moving a 16-year-old girl from an unsatisfactory group home to transitional housing. When the judge granted permission, they filled two cars with their client's belongings for the move. "We were all a bit giddy, and I felt strangely like a parent dropping her child off at college, full of a mixture of pride and worry," Wood said.

Andrea Hill 3L and Malisha Jones 3L also participated in the clinic. Eric Randall serves as administrator for both clinics. For more information about all of the USF Law Clinics, e-mail him at ejrandall2@usfca.edu.