CLINICS
Through clinics, students gain valuable skills, knowledge, and mental habits that help prepare them for a successful practice, as well as deep insight into the strategic, ethical, and relational dimensions of the legal profession.
The S.J. Quinney College of Law offers a variety of exciting clinic opportunities.
Environmental Justice Clinic
The Environmental Justice Clinic partners closely with Indigenous and other communities in Utah and the southwest. The Clinic uses a range of tools—including fact-finding, reporting, qualitative and quantitative methods, transnational and grassroots strategies, storytelling, media engagement, and corporate accountability—to advance environmental justice. Students develop the skills necessary to be strategic, creative, effective, and community-centered advocates.
Environmental Policy Accelerator
The Environmental Policy Accelerator (EPA) develops legal and policy analysis to assist policymakers confronting pressing environmental challenges. The EPA is currently focusing on water conservation and the Great Salt Lake.
Intellectual Property Clinic
The Intellectual Property Clinic (IP Clinic) is a USPTO designated patent and trademark clinic. This pro bono clinic helps entrepreneurs, nonprofit organizations, small businesses, students, and others with intellectual property issues, including filing trademark and patent applications. Students learn substantive intellectual property, along with skills to effectively prepare and file patent and trademark applications.
International Law Clinic
International Law Clinic students collaborate on projects addressing contemporary and pressing issues of international law. Students learn to communicate the practical relevance of international law to a variety of audiences while building advanced research and drafting skills through complex legal analysis.
Mental Health Legal Clinic
The Mental Health Legal Clinic is a medical-legal partnership with the Huntsman Mental Health Institute’s Crisis Care Center. Under the supervision of the Clinic Director, clinic students work with patients of the Crisis Care Center to help them address their health-harming civil legal needs. Students interview clients, conduct legal and factual research, develop advocacy strategies, counsel clients, and engage in written and oral legal advocacy.
Post-Conviction Clinic
The Post-Conviction Clinic gives students the opportunity to work on cases where the client has been convicted of a crime, has completed their direct appeals, and has exhausted all constitutionally guaranteed processes to someone accused of a crime. In cooperation with the Utah Appellate Defense Division of the Utah Indigent Defense Commission, students in the Post-Conviction Clinic assist to investigate and litigate cases where the client claims either that they are innocent of the crimes for which they have been convicted, or that their constitutional rights were violated before, during or after their trial.
Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic
The Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic offers students the opportunity to represent refugees and other immigrants who are seeking protection from persecution in their country of origin. The clinic partners with organizations serving the refugee and immigrant community in Utah. Students assist clients with accessing resettlement benefits (including work authorization), applications for asylum and other humanitarian forms of protection, and other legal projects and policy initiatives to advocate on behalf of the immigrant and refugee community in Utah.