Spring 2025 Practicums
Now Enrolling for Spring 2025 Practicums!
Elements of Policy Analysis (LAW 7846) (Basic policy skills training course open to all.)
A Saturday Methods Boot Camp, April 6, 9 AM to 4 PM. This one-credit course supports students undertaking public policy analysis in the Policy Lab and in other policy-based courses.
Building A Sustainable, Transparent, and Humane Food System (809T) NEW
The first phase of a longer project that provides legal research and policy support to officials seeking to improve animal agricultural practices and disclosure in California.
Hopi Tribal Court Legal Assistance Project (809S) EL / R credit NEW
Law students assist the Hopi Tribal Appellate Court of Arizona in two tracks. Track 1: Law Clerks (3 units, EL): Students serve as off-site law clerks to the Justices. Law clerks will be assigned to a Justice with whom they meet regularly to discuss assignments. They will assist in preparing for oral arguments and drafting written decisions or other assistance. Track 2: Policy Research (2-3 units, R possible): Law students assist the Appellate Court in researching and developing internal policy documents such as creating rules of procedure and facilitating mediation and restorative justice methodologies. The team will travel to Northern Arizona to meet with clients and stakeholders over the period of April 18-21.
Immigration Status and Access to K-12 Education (810A)
In this class, we will conduct legal research to assist a national nonprofit organization, working with lawyers in that organization to: develop a complete understanding of existing state statutory and constitutional guarantees of access to K-12 education for immigrant residents; design and create a site where this information can be stored, accessed, and revised electronically; and draft model state legislation protective of such educational access.
Roses Talk: Elevating At-Promise Student Voices in San José Unified (809X)
Despite decades of efforts to remediate racial disparities in education, low-income schools serving predominantly students of color continue to face significant challenges that perpetuate unequal educational outcomes. While no single solution can solve these complex issues, insights from the most marginalized students offer an underutilized source of knowledge that can drive more effective policies and practices. This policy lab seeks to directly address persistent disparities in education by elevating at-promise student voices in school and district decision making, reshaping our thinking around and approaches to advancing educational equity.
Santa Clara County Litigation & Policy Partnership (SCCLPP) (807G)
This policy lab partners with the Office of the County Counsel for the County of Santa Clara. Students in the lab will work with the leadership and deputies of the office on both litigation and policy matters related to urgent local challenges. SCCLPP projects may include issues from a range of fields: environmental protection, consumer protection, criminal justice, land use law, the rights of immigrant residents, public health, election law, and local finance.
Thinking in Systems (809W)
Virtually every public policy has causes and consequences beyond those that are intended or immediately visible. This is true of criminal law policies that use algorithmic predictions of flight before trial; environmental policies involving greenhouse gas emissions and conventional pollutants; and social and health policies that address homelessness, institutional racism, and the distribution of Covid vaccines, to name just a few examples. The causes of the problems that these policies seek to address are complex. As a result, these policies often fail and sometimes have unintended adverse consequences. “Systems thinking” reveals the web of associations in which such policies reside. Its goal is to identify the multiple causes of problems and aid in designing enduring solutions.