Washington University’s School of Law in St Louis has opened a new immigration clinic that aims to help students to deal with matters about immigration that impact people on a low-to-moderate level of income. The clinic director and assistant professor of practice, Katie Meyer, says the Immigration Law Clinic hopes to offer upper-level law students the chance to get hands-on experience in helping clients to deal with legal immigration issues.
Meyer says that students will be able to learn the vital legal skills they need to practice law within any setting, specifically the complexities of immigration law in the US by representing immigrants and their families. With the addition of the new clinic, there are now 18 clinical courses available to the university’s law students.
Associate dean for clinical education and professor of law, Robert Kuehn, says there has never been a higher need for the existence of an immigration law clinic. This is due to immigration issues becoming major news in recent years, resulting in student interest in the always popular field growing more pronounced, with more students wanting to accurately comprehend such a complex field of the legal system.
The law clinics at the school offer free legal assistance to organizations and individuals who are underrepresented and otherwise unable to afford the cost of legal representation while also benefiting the communities of Illinois and Missouri and allowing students to emerge from law school with a greater understanding of the region’s immigrant communities.