35 years of Clinicals at GW

For 35 years, GW Law has provided effective legal services to the Washington community and beyond through the Jacob Burns Community Legal Clinics. Through strong faculty leadership and skillful student participation, the program has grown steadily into uncharted legal and research territories. Today, it boasts several unique clinics that make an international impact felt by thousands of clients each year. Programs including vaccine injury, mediation, and small business clinics were either pioneered by or can only be found at GW Law.

Alberto M. Benitez, who has led GW Law’s Immigration Law Clinic since 1996, also has witnessed tremendous growth in his clinical field. Established in 1979, the clinic has an outstanding reputation in Washington for defending the rights of resident aliens. “Despite the abundance of lawyers in the United States, there is a critical shortage of competent immigration lawyers,” Benitez says. “Over the years, clinic students have developed an expertise in representing aliens in removal proceedings, dramatically increasing their clients’ odds of remaining lawfully in the United States.” Benitez’s students also have won cases involving controversial issues such as female genital mutilation, torture, and HIV-status, and have obtained freedom from detention for aliens. “Our clinic specializes in preventing aliens’ removal from the country, and our students are very good at it,” says Benitez. “In immigration law, the bureaucracy is so vast and overwhelming that it often seems insurmountable.” The clinic secured a huge victory in August, when an out-of-status alien who had been in the United States since 1988 became a lawful permanent resident. “He’d been working menial jobs all these years, with no real security, and now he’s out of the shadows and legal,” Benitez says. Like many of his colleagues, Benitez keeps in touch with students after they graduate. “I’m always getting e-mails and phone calls from former students telling me what’s going on in their lives,” he says, noting that he had lunch with seven law clinic alumni during a recent trip to Chicago.

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KJ