Community Law Clinic
The Community Law Clinic (CLC) is Stanford’s neighborhood legal services office. Located on the east side of Palo Alto, CLC is proximate to the low-income neighborhoods of the mid-peninsula region where Stanford is located. The signature features of the CLC are its off-campus location and its bustling volume. CLC asks a lot of its students, who must juggle multiple matters simultaneously in three distinct subject matters. Being off campus and having a diverse and busy caseload affords CLC students extensive client contact, as well as a feel for daily life “beyond the bubble.”
CLC is fundamentally a direct services, trial practice clinic. Under the supervision of the clinic instructors, students represent clients in housing, social security disability, and criminal record expungement matters. CLC students are their clients’ lawyers (pursuant to court rules). As such, students meet with their clients, interview witnesses, review documents, negotiate with opposing counsel, draft pleadings and other legal documents, and represent their clients in court. They have primary responsibility for all the strategic decisions in their cases. Transitioning from being a law student to being a lawyer, CLC students learn that legal analysis is but one part of successful representation. They learn how to set that legal analysis in motion, in real life contexts characterized by indeterminate facts, anxious clients, intransigent opponents, and busy trial judges.
Students are supervised in their cases by Clinic Director and Professor Juliet Brodie, as well as clinical supervising attorneys Danielle Jones, Lisa Douglass, and Lauren Zack. Bilingual administrative staff facilitate communications with monolingual Spanish-Speaking clients.

CLC gave me the chance to pick up the phone and tell someone that I was his lawyer. I hadn't given much thought to this statement before clinic, but each time I introduced myself to one of my clients I found it both powerful and humbling.
Zack Glubiak, '18
CLC at Work
Whether at court, in the office, or in the community, CLC students, faculty supervisors and staff offer client-centered legal representation to a variety of low-income clients.

CLC Featured on MLC Blog
Student Argues in Court for Long-Awaited Disability Benefits for Clinic Client
On February 12, the Community Law Clinic helped a 23-year-old visually impaired and disabled client gain approval for Social Security disability benefits, after he and his mother had been trying to get the benefits for over a decade. Rebecca Vogel (JD '15), supervised by Clinical Supervising Attorney Lisa Douglass, represented the client…
Read MoreIn the News

Stanford Law Answers Attorney General’s Call to Address the Covid-19 Housing and Eviction Crisis
SLS students and faculty among 2,100 law students who dedicated more than 81,000 hours to serve 10,000 households at risk of eviction On January 28, 2022, the White House and Department of Justice held a virtual event to discuss the status of U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s August 30, 2021…
Read MoreStanford Law Students, Faculty Help Low-Income Renters Avoid Eviction in Hands-On Legal Aid Clinic
Juliet Brodie was Named the Peter E. Haas Faculty Director of the Haas Center for Public Service.
Trustees Address Stanford’s National, Regional And Global Engagement
Faculty Senate Hears Reports On Long-Range Planning Efforts, Postdoctoral Scholars