Apart from their assigned mod courses, 1L students may only enroll in courses offered as 1L electives. A complete list of these courses can be found on the 1L Elective Listings page. 1L students must use the 1L class number listed on the course description when enrolling.
295.5K sec. 001 - Policy Advocacy Clinic for 1Ls (Spring 2025)
Instructor: Jeffrey Selbin (view instructor's teaching evaluations - degree students only | profile)
View all teaching evaluations for this course - degree students only
Units: 2
Grading Designation: Credit Only
Mode of Instruction: In-Person
Course End: May 14, 2025
Enrollment info:
Enrolled: 4
Waitlisted: 0
Enroll Limit: 6
As of: 11/23 11:55 PM
In the Policy Advocacy Clinic (PAC), law and public policy students support change campaigns to contest and shrink the carceral state. PAC's approach is ground-up (informed by directly impacted people), problem-based (addressing pressing issues), and client-driven (accountable to community organizations and coalitions). PAC students have supported successful campaigns in California to abolish all fees in the juvenile legal system and to repeal dozens of fees in the criminal (adult) legal system, relieving youth and families of more than $18 billion to date.
This clinical experience for first-year students (1Ls and first-year MPPs) has two required components -- this course, which is the 2-units of required fieldwork, and the required companion seminar, and the 1-unit Policy Advocacy Clinic for 1Ls Seminar (TBD 1035). Students will represent an organization that has retained PAC to help identify, research, and analyze new bills in the California Legislature that would expand or deepen the carceral state. This “bad bills” project will introduce students to the lawmaking process in Sacramento from the introduction of bills in January through their substantive hearings in policy committees in March and April.
Students will learn law and policy skills, including conducting legal and social science research and analysis and consulting stakeholders (community members, policy and advocacy organizations, public officials, academics). By participating actively in client and working group meetings, students will also learn advocacy skills, including facilitation, interviewing, messaging, and strategic decision-making.
On behalf of PAC’s client, students will draft internal work product such as bill analyses, talking points, and fiscal memos, and public-facing work product such as fact sheets, public comments, and opposition letters. Depending on the bill and client need, students may have the opportunity to draft and file Public Records Act requests (California’s equivalent to FOIA) and to prepare and deliver testimony or public comment at a hearing in Sacramento.
The enrollment target is 3-5 JD students and 3-5 MPP students to work together on teams. There are no prerequisites, but an application is required (https://www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/forms/clinics/clinical_application.php). Applications open at 3pm on 10/29 and are due at noon on November 4. Prior experience working on criminal justice reform or racial and economic justice more generally may be taken into consideration. The instructor is committed to an equitable, inclusive, and anti-racist learning and practice environment. Enrollment in the co-requisite seminar (1 unit) and clinic (2 units) are by permission of the instructor.
Attendance at the first class is mandatory for all currently enrolled and waitlisted students; any currently enrolled or waitlisted students who are not present on the first day of class (without prior permission of the instructor) will be dropped. The instructor will continue to take attendance throughout the add/drop period and anyone who moves off the waitlist into the class must continue to attend or have prior permission of the instructor in order not to be dropped.
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Requirements Satisfaction:
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Exam Notes: (None) Class requires a series of papers, assignments, or presentations throughout the semester
(Subject to change by faculty member only through the first two weeks of instruction)
Course Category: Clinics
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