Winter Term Opportunities: Writing and Clinical Projects and International Travel Grants

All Harvard Law School students enroll in Winter Term for three weeks in January.  While all first-year students take a Problem-Solving Workshop at HLS, second- and third-year and LL.M. students may choose among a number of options for winter term.  Some of our students enroll in HLS courses offered in the winter term and receive law school classroom credits.  Other students devote the winter term to doing the research for or to writing a substantial paper under the supervision of an HLS faculty member through the Winter Writing Program. Students with prior approval may travel—domestically or abroad—to conduct research that they have shown cannot be done in Cambridge and is necessary to the success of the project. Students interested in a legal practice experience may participate in a clinical program during the winter term, which allows them to spend the three week term doing direct client services or research and writing for a non-profit, government, or public interest organization.  Recent Winter Term projects have enabled students to work for the South African Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons, examine antiquities trafficking in Guatemala, and study security regulations in Korea. Other projects have taken HLS students to China, Guyana, Haiti, India, Kenya, and Switzerland, to name just a few.  The Winter Term International Travel Grant Program provides funding to students for overseas travel during Winter Term.

Please join us on Tuesday, October 2 at 12 p.m. for an information session on Winter Term Opportunities:  Writing and Clinical Projects and International Travel. The session will be held in Wasserstein 2004; lunch will be served.

{Photo:  In January 2011, Randall Gonzalez-Villalobos (LLM ’11) and Maggie Morgan (JD ’11) conducted research on behalf of the Ghana Legal Resources Centre as part of Professor Lucie White’s course “Making Rights Real: The Ghana Project.”}

 

Cart Weiland (JD ’12) on conducting research in Mexico with a Winter Term International Travel Grant

“I just got back from a one-on-one meeting with a Mexican border state legislator in the national house of representatives here. We discussed the proper role of state and local governments on both sides of the Mexican border in resolving the narco-violence that terrorizes his home state of Coahuila.”

Jaime Latcham (JD ’12) and Joslyn Massengale (JD ’12) on their time in Israel doing an independent clinical program with a Winter Term International Travel Grant at the Refugee Rights Clinic, Tel Aviv University

“Refugee law is in a constant state of flux in Israel, and at the clinic our work focuses on both representing individual clients as well as challenging administrative regulations that we believe violate the rights of asylum-seekers. Last week our clinic argued a petition before the Supreme Court challenging the prohibition on work. We are now deciding how best to challenge other new policies, such as the detention of asylum-seekers when they present themselves to register, and the lack of a meaningful appeals process.”

Matt Vittone (JD ’11) on doing an independent clinical program at the Arts Law Centre of Australia with a Winter Term International Travel Grant

“Right now, I am working on drafting a template cast and crew agreement for use by low-budget filmmakers in New South Wales, and then working with attorneys in other regions to adapt the agreement to the laws of each of the Australian states.”