Read how the clinic provides students with the opportunity to seek justice for clients before the federal circuit courts and Board of Immigration Appeals in the latest issue of “CATALYST” magazine.
Photo: Aadhithi Padmanabhan, JD, is shown with students at Maryland Carey Law’s newly established Federal Appellate Immigration Clinic. Photo by Matthew D’Agostino
Aadhithi Padmanabhan, JD, encourages students in the newly established Federal Appellate Immigration Clinic at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law to take on the tough cases. “When you take a case that other people might not take, that’s where you can make the biggest impact,” she said.
Padmanabhan is an assistant professor and director of the new clinic, which is part of the Chacón Center for Immigrant Justice at Maryland Carey Law. The clinic provides students with the opportunity to seek justice for clients before the federal circuit courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals.
“This is wonderful for our clients because there are very few legal services at the appellate level,” said Maureen Sweeney, JD, law professor and director of the Chacón Center. “And it’s great for students because they have an opportunity to get into the federal courts, which helps career-wise if they want to do a federal clerkship.”
The nascent clinic is in what Padmanabhan calls “the building phase.” Spring 2023 was the first semester it was offered, and Padmanabhan says she relied on years of legal experience working on similar cases at the Legal Aid Society and the American Civil Liberties Union of New York as well as the insight of clinicians in Maryland and across the country to shape the syllabus.
“I want to create litigation environments at the law school that mirror my own experiences as a lawyer,” she said.
To that end, the students in the clinic are split into two- or three-person teams — each assigned to work on an appeal in a deportation case.
Read more about the Federal Appellate Immigration Clinic in the latest issue of CATALYST magazine.
You can read the Fall 2023 issue of CATALYST magazine, which highlights UMB's Center for Violence Prevention and its executive director; the University's three new deans; UMB's many innovations such as the School of Pharmacy training students to administer long-acting injectables; community initiatives such as the Community Engagement Center's workforce programs; UMB’s sustainability efforts to install a weather station; and much, much more!