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Public Interest Law Center
Founded in 1991, the Public Interest Law Center, formerly called the Children's Advocacy Center (CAC), trains second- and third-year law students in legal advocacy with an emphasis on intensive one-on-one and small group instruction. The Center, which has approximately 110 on-going cases, is unique among law school clinical programs for providing a broad range of legal services. It consists of three clinics: the Children's Advocacy Clinic, the Family Law Clinic and the Medical-Legal Partnership.
Children's Advocacy Clinic (6 credits - fall and spring semesters, 3 credits - summer semester)
The Children’s Advocacy Clinic represents children in foster care, juvenile delinquency, health care, special education, disability, social security and criminal law cases. The clinic provides each child full legal representation. Students represent children in state courts, in trial and appellate cases and in state and federal administrative hearings. Students learn by doing. Through role playing, pre and post legal event discussions, and court room observation, students learn the skill sets and the substantive law to zealously represent their clients. State court judges around Florida routinely appoint the clinic to handle the legal issues of the neediest children. The Children’s Advocacy Clinic, directed by Clinical Professor Paolo Annino, is nationally and internationally recognized for its advocacy on behalf of children.
Public Interest Law Center students, Annino featured in Florida Bar Foundation story
Family Law Clinic (6 credits - fall and spring semesters, 3 credits - summer semester)
The Family Law Clinic serves low income clients with a wide range of family law issues, including dissolution of marriage, custody, visitation, injunctions against violence, paternity, modifications and contempt of court. Clinical Professor Ruth Stone directs the activities of the Family Law Clinic.
Medical-Legal Partnership (6 credits - fall and spring semesters, 3 credits - summer semester)
The Medical-Legal Partnership, a collaboration between the Florida State University Colleges of Law and Medicine, is an innovation in interdisciplinary education. Law students partner with medical students, social work students, lawyers and physicians to examine patients’ social determinants of health. Students work inter-professionally to ascertain the best methods to resolve the health and related legal problems of impoverished patients. Each semester, eight law students meet with potential clients at the Neighborhood Health Services, and tackle the disability rights and immigration cases that the clients present. The effort combines service learning education with collaborative approaches to holistic problem solving for indigent individuals. Clinical Professor Wendi Adelson directs the Medical-Legal Partnership.
Our Program
Center students meet face to face with clients, learn the details of each case and develop strategies to the achieve the best possible legal outcomes.
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Faculty & Staff
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A distinctive element of the center's teaching is its emphasis on role-playing. Before students represent a client at trial or conduct a deposition, they go through a rigorous series of practices where, with the direction of clinical faculty, mistakes are corrected and presentations polished. |
In the News
The Center's work has been featured in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, on the CBS television news program 60 Minutes II, and on the National Public Radio program, This American Life. Internationally, magazines in Spain and Germany have chronicled the Center's cases.