Associate Professor of Law, Federal Litigation Clinic 

Prof. Michael W. Martin

Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Federal Litigation Clinic

HIGH STAKES AND COMPLEX matters are the day-to-day work of the Federal Litigation Clinic.  Students working in teams of two's and three's represent people accused of serious federal crimes in the United States District Courts and the United States Courts of Appeal.  Each case presents a host of fascinating and complex issues that lack obvious answers and make "rigor" and "innovation" critical concepts to this clinic. 

Many Litigation Clinic clients face the possibility of long prison terms and intense pressure from prosecutors to cooperate.  The students and professor engage in exciting analysis -- often turning the matter upside down, inside out, moving it backward and forward, and ultimately dissecting and reconstructing it -- to discover the course that best fits the client's goals.

The clinic also carries a docket of related federal civil litigation.  Each semester brings unanticipated forays into new legal venues.  Students may work intensively on fact analysis in one matter while they collaborate with a doctoral student in forensic psychology on a sentencing issue in another case, proving a favorite maxim of the clinic's faculty:  "a good lawyer will consider every cause and consequence of a case for strategic and legal reasons."

We provide, by any measure, first-rate legal representation to a group of clients who generally would not otherwise be able to afford it. Additionally, we can guide students on how to offer this representation with more, and a different kind of, seriousness.
Professor James Cohen, Founding Director of Clinical Education Program