Legislation Clinic

UC Law SF College of the Law, consistent with its commitment to public interest law, offers students a legislation clinic that provides an in-depth systematic study of the legislative process from a practical as well as an academic perspective. Students in the Legislation Clinic work for a legislator who is a lawyer, a legislative committee staffed by a lawyer, a selected public entity involved with the legislative process and principally staffed by lawyers. A typical field placement might involve working for a committee like the Assembly Committee on the Judiciary or Senate Committee on Environmental Quality, or with the office of the Legislative Counsel. Students learn about statutory lawmaking and observe/participate in the lawyer’s role in legislative process by assisting in crafting, analyzing, and promoting legislation, and by attending related activities such as committee hearings and floor sessions. The work is usually hybrid working remotely and periodically working in Sacramento.

A benefit of this clinic is that placements are pre-arranged in accordance with the student’s interest, although a student may arrange for a placement if approved by the clinic director.

This program supplements a student’s initial exposure to the subject of statutory law gained in the student’s first-year statutory course. It enhances the student’s basic knowledge of the legislative process and related issues the student gained by taking legislation as a first-year statutory course and/or the legislative process course. The program provides students with a comprehensive exposure to the dynamic aspects of the legislative process, the means by which statutory law is created. Through hands-on participation, a student can hone the lawyering skills of research, writing, analyzing, negotiating, and advocating. These skills are an integral part of a legislative practice, as well as a traditional practice of law.

The legislation clinic is reinforced by course work consisting of an advanced legislative process and bill-drafting seminar. This concurrent seminar provides an academic focus to the legislation clinic. In addition to developing skills, the program exposes its participants to the making of statutory law thereby providing insight regarding how law is determined in our legal system and the inter-relationship between statutory law and decisional law developed by the courts.

The program, only offered in spring semesters when the legislature is in session, starts on the first Monday in January and is completed by the end of April. The program consists of a legislation clinical placement and concurrent enrollment in a legislative process seminar and bill-drafting course.

Placements change from session to session. Previous placements have included:

* Legislative Counsel
* Governor’s Office
* President Pro Tempore of the Senate
* Senate Committee on Business and Professions
* Senate Committee on Environmental Quality
* Senate Committee on Education
* Senate Committee on Insurance
* Speaker of the Assembly
* Assembly Committee on Business and Professions
* Assembly Committee on Human Services
* Assembly Committee on the Judiciary
* Assembly Committee on Natural Resources
* Assembly Committee on Public Safety
* Selected investigating committees
* Individual legislators who are attorneys
* California Law Revision Commission
* Judicial Council

For further information concerning the program, please see Sharknet.