How to Craft a Successful Client Application

Community organizations with a focus on social justice issues may apply to be client organizations of the Legal Skills in Social Context (LSSC) program. More than organizations nationwide apply each year, and of these, only 16 are selected. Some successful client organizations return to the program year after year.

In order to create a successful client organization application, first, you must clearly and concisely articulate a specific social justice issue that your client organization would like addressed by the program. Successful projects are clearly defined at the outset and do not change drastically between proposal and completion. They may seek to analyze the effect of a change in law or policy, or may involve comparative consideration of differing models to help shape new policy directions. Vague proposals will not be accepted.

Second, the proposal must fit within the time and resource constraints of the program. The projects must involve considerable legal and investigative field research, yet focused enough to be completed by a team of twelve or thirteen students working for two months. Client organizations, if successfully chosen, will work with the program to create a manageable project from the initial proposal.

Third, your proposal must delineate the research expectations involved. Your project must present a social justice question that requires research into case law, statutes and/or policy, as well as anecdotal research based on field interviews, meetings with experts and stakeholders. Your project may also require site visits.

Ideal project proposals for the LSSC program forecast a research need. The goal of the project may be to produce a final report analyzing findings of law and policy, or may be the preparation of materials for a conference, or perhaps may be to produce a training manual for practitioners or the public. Final work products also may include best practices analyses and suggestions for legal and policy reform. The LSSC program can benefit organizations by providing the resources to undertake work that would not otherwise be possible, given an organization’s limited resources. Additionally, the students who undertake the project gain experience in legal research and writing, and hone their legal problem-solving skills on behalf of an actual client organization. They also benefit from seeing their work put to productive use.

LSSC prefers that proposed projects do not require extensive surveying or the use of statistical methodology to produce empirical evidence. However, many projects, by their nature, will require some surveying and an anecdotal sampling of the populations that the community organization serves. In those situations, the scope of the survey and the questions to be asked must be defined as early as possible by the client organization. LSSC reserves the right to cancel or scale back any such surveying if it is unfeasible in the time span afforded or the geographical area covered. All investigative field research must fit within the time demands of the students’ general course load.

On your application, please designate a contact person (or persons) who will be available to provide assistance to the Fall and Winter Lawyering Fellows, as well as to the first year students for the duration of the entire project. Descriptions of past successful projects are available, and examples of successful project reports are on file with Professor Susan Maze-Rothstein and are available for review upon request.

If your proposed project presents a good learning opportunity for our students and can feasibly be completed in the time frame provided, you will be notified by letter. Letters are mailed to client organizations in late August. If your proposal is selected, an upper-level Lawyering Fellow will contact you sometime in September. The Lawyering Fellow, along with input from both your organization and the LSSC faculty, will plan and organize the project’s details, and produce a thorough orientation packet detailing the project's specifics by the beginning of November.