1L First Client Contact Experience

Volunteers for the pop-up wills clinic

100% of our first-year students participate in at least one pro bono community experience as part of their required 1L First Client Contact Experience and many choose to volunteer for multiple service options. Faculty supervisors and area attorneys prepare students to conduct intake interviews and accompany our students to process and reflect on their work as it happens. These first-year experiences immediately engage students in practicing law, energize their studies in foundation courses and motivate them to commit to a career-long engagement in pro bono work.

Our students have engaged in a variety of brief advice clinics, including events focused on expungement/sealing of criminal records, driver license reinstatement, legal name and gender marker change, wills and immigration. 

Some of our current and recent partners for these clinics are:

  • Black Women's Political Action Committee
  • Catholic Charities
  • Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association
  • Cuyahoga County Office of Reentry
  • Cuyahoga County Public Defender's Office
  • Equality Ohio
  • Equitas Health
  • Legal Aid Society of Cleveland
  • Midwest CannaWomen
  • Ohio Health Modernization Movement - HIV Modernization Movement Project 
  • University Hospitals