A Supreme Court Clinic is a law school clinic that provides hands-on legal experience in Supreme Court Litigation to law students. Clinics are usually directed by clinical professors and experienced Supreme Court litigators and typically represent indigent or non-profit clients in the Supreme Court of the United States. Assistance is provided pro bono.
Supreme Court Clinics exist at Stanford Law School, New York University Law School, Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, The University of Virginia School of Law, The University of Texas School of Law, Emory University School of Law, Northwestern University Law School, and University of Pennsylvania Law School. Supreme Court clinics generally file amicus briefs ("friend of the Court briefs"); petitions for certiorari, which are formal requests to the Court to decide a case; and merits briefs, which are formal legal arguments presented to the Court after it as agreed to take a case. Typically, experienced Supreme Court litigators help run the clinics. It is these litigators who represent the clinics before the Court during oral arguments.
The first Supreme Court Clinic was founded at Stanford Law School in 2004 and, by March 2006, the Supreme Court had agreed to hear five cases the clinic helped file and declined to hear three. The Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at NYU School of Law was formed in Fall 2007. The Supreme Court Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law was formed in Fall 2006; the Yale Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic was formed in Fall 2006; and the University of Virginia Supreme Court Litigation Clinic was formed in Fall 2006. Harvard Law School announced that it will launch a Supreme Court Clinic in Fall 2007. The University of Pennsylvania opened its Supreme Court Clinic Fall 2009. The Emory Law School Supreme Court Advocacy Project, the first largely student-run Supreme Court Clinic, started in Fall 2010. Since then, Supreme Court clinics have popped up at the law schools of UCLA, George Mason University, and West Virginia University.
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