Beth Lyon, Clinical Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Experiential Education, Clinical Program Director, and Director of the Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic

Cornell Law’s Legal Aid Clinic sits in the Third Department of the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division and was first certified for student practice in 1966. The Third Department’s student practice rule authorizes our students “to render legal services to and represent only persons who are financially unable to pay for legal services and are eligible to qualify for free legal services in accordance with the standards and guidelines of the organization or program in which they are engaged.”  

We are privileged to serve people who have been shut out of the economy (and often society). In the wake of the recent election, our students are experiencing what lawyers face when their services are in particularly urgent demand. We learn and teach about coming changes in the law, develop contingency plans and counsel our clients, shift resources to outreach and mass preparation, and advocate for change or preservation of the law. As students draft their final papers and plan for exams, many of them are also working through this process — and we could not be prouder of their care and concern for their clients and the rule of law. 

Helping us in this work are the victories. In mid November, after more than a decade of work, the International Human Rights Clinic learned that longtime client Melissa Lucio was found to be “actually innocent” by a senior state district judge in Texas. Alongside Clinical Professor of Law Sandra Babcock, Cornell students worked tirelessly to stop Melissa’s execution in light of a coerced confession of culpability in the accidental death of Ms. Lucio’s two-year-old daughter. Students and faculty in the Veterans Law Practicum worked for nine months to successfully reunite a local veteran and her service dog after the Great Dane was sentenced to be euthanized in a case of mistaken identity. And, a $1.5 million grant enabled the formation of Path2Papers, a project that helps DACA workers obtain work visas and other pathways to permanent legal residency in collaboration with the Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic.  

I don’t want to close without mentioning that two of our alumni, Emily Paavola ’05 and Lindsey Vann (Hotel ’05), recently lost clients who were executed by the State of South Carolina. Both were with their clients, Freddie Owens and Richard Moore, in the execution chamber. We are proud of them for their extraordinary service to their clients, and we want them to know we are thinking about them, their clients, and their client’s surviving family members. 

You will read about these and many other developments in this issue of our clinical newsletter. And, as always, please do stop in and see us if you find yourself here “high above Cayuga’s waters.” 

Walk gently, 

Beth