YALE LAW SCHOOL CLINICAL FELLOWSHIPS
in the Veterans Legal Services Clinic
and Housing and Community & Economic Development Clinics
Yale Law School seeks applicants for two clinical fellowships in the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, within Yale Law School’s clinical program. These Fellowships are two-year positions with a third-year option, beginning on or about July 1, 2023, and are designed for lawyers with at least three years of practice who are considering a career in law school teaching. Each fellow will work with a different clinic. Responsibilities include representing clients, supervising students, assisting in teaching classes, and pursuing a scholarship agenda. Fellows also have an option to co-teach a section of a six-week fall program for first-year students, Introduction to Legal Analysis and Writing, for additional compensation. Candidates must be prepared to apply for admission to the Connecticut bar (candidates may qualify for admission without examination). All work will be conducted with the support of the clinical faculty and will focus on providing legal assistance to low-income and civil rights clients and organizations.
The Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization is committed to building a culturally diverse and pluralistic faculty and staff to teach and work in a multicultural environment. Candidates must be able to work both independently and as part of a team, and must possess strong written and oral communication skills. Experience in creative and community-driven advocacy is a strong plus. Annual salary is $75,000-80,000. In addition, Fellows will receive health benefits and access to university facilities.
Email a resume, cover letter, writing sample, and names, addresses and telephone numbers of three references to Osikhena Awudu, Program Manager, The Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, osikhena.awudu@yale.edu. Please indicate the clinic or clinics to which you are applying. Applications will be accepted until March 15, 2023 but will be reviewed on a rolling basis (early applications encouraged).
More details about each fellowship follow below.
Veterans Legal Services Clinic (VLSC)
VLSC is a semester-long, in-house clinic whose students represent veterans and their organizations in VA benefits, record correction, and civil rights litigation in administrative, state, and federal courts, and in state and federal policy advocacy.
Illustrative cases include representation of individual veterans seeking disability compensation benefits for injuries incurred during military service, in initial applications, administrative appeals, and judicial review in federal court; former service members in applications to upgrade a less-than-honorable discharge before Defense Department boards and on judicial review in federal court; plaintiffs in federal civil rights cases, such as a woman raped while a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Black veterans seeking reparations for historic discrimination in VA benefits programs; three nation-wide classes of Iraq and Afghanistan Era veterans who received less-than-fully-honorable discharges, despite having PTSD or related conditions attributable to their military service; a nation-wide class of U.S. Air Force veterans exposed to radiation after cleaning up two hydrogen bombs accidentally dropped on Spain in 1966, in the first appeals class action certified in the history of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims; and local and national veterans’ organizations in campaigns to address gender discrimination in congressional nominations to the military service academies; curb retaliation against servicemembers who report sexual harassment or assault; and make veterans with bad paper eligible for state veterans’ benefits.
The principal supervisor for the position will be Professor Michael Wishnie.
Housing and Community & Economic Development Clinics
The Community & Economic Development (CED) is a semester-long, in-house clinic that provides transactional legal services to clients seeking to promote economic opportunity and mobility. CED’s clients include affordable housing developers, community development financial institutions, farms and farmer’s markets, fair housing advocates, and neighborhood associations. CED’s legal services help our clients to expand access to financial services, bring arts institutions and grocery stores to chronically under-resourced communities, break down barriers to affordable housing development in high-opportunity communities, promote access to healthy foods, and facilitate entrepreneurship among low-income people.
The Housing Clinic is a semester-long, in-house clinic that represents tenants facing evictions and substandard housing conditions; homeowners facing foreclosures and seeking affirmative relief for illegal behavior by mortgage lenders and servicers; and individuals and advocates in affirmative fair housing litigation.
On behalf of our clients, our students represent clients in federal and state courts; negotiate and draft contracts; provide advice on the tax consequences of deal structures and entity choices; structure and carry out real estate transactions; represent borrowers and lenders in financings; engage in legislative and regulatory advocacy; form for-profit and not-for-profit entities; and resolve land use and environmental issues. In addition to representing clients, students in their first semester of the clinic take a seminar which covers federal, state and local policies affecting urban and suburban places; substantive law in tax, real estate development, and corporate governance; and transactional and regulatory lawyering skills, such as negotiation and drafting contracts.
The principal supervisor for the position will be Professor Anika Singh Lemar.
Yale University considers applicants for employment without regard to, and does not discriminate on the basis of, an individual’s sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, status as a veteran, or national or ethnic origin; nor does Yale discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 protects people from sex discrimination in educational programs and activities at institutions that receive federal financial assistance. Questions regarding Title IX may be referred to the University’s Title IX Coordinator, at TitleIX@yale.edu, or to the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 8th Floor, Five Post Office Square, Boston MA 02109-3921. Telephone: 617.289.0111, Fax: 617.289.0150, TDD: 800.877.8339, or Email: ocr.boston@ed.gov.