How To Enroll

SCHOOL YEAR CLINIC

Registration Information: Any student who has finished the first year of law school, has achieved a 2.6 GPA or higher, meets the pre-/co-requisite requirements, and clears a conflicts check, is eligible to take the Earthrise clinic. Students with lower GPAs can contact Earthrise Director, Allison LaPlante (laplante@lclark.edu), and seek permission to enroll.

Students must apply and be accepted before they can enroll in the clinic. Apply through this Google form. Applications will be accepted starting in early April of every year and must be submitted no later than two weeks prior to when the law school’s general registration opens. If a student is selected, they will choose Earthrise Clinic as one of their course selections during the normal registration process. We will notify you of admission decisions no later than one week prior to the start of registration.

All admitted applicants will go through a compliance check regarding meeting the pre-/co-requisites and minimum GPA requirements. If you are admitted to the clinic, you will then enroll for the clinic through WebAdvisor. By registering for this clinic, you are giving permission for the Registrar’s office to provide your cumulative GPA to the Earthrise professors after spring grades are in. Earthrise enrollment is limited to 22 students; final enrollment preference will be given to rising 3Ls. After final enrollment, each student will be contacted in order to clear any potential conflicts of interest.

Earthrise prefers a full-year commitment (three credits per semester), though students can register for just one semester if they have unavoidable scheduling conflicts that prevent them from registering for both semesters. However, students who only enroll in Earthrise Twofor one semester cannot enroll in Earthrise Ethics, which is a mandatory two-semester course.

 

Some Earthrise Basics 

Location: In Wood Hall on the Law School Campus

Credit

Course

Length

Prerequisites

Work 

Hours

 Fulfills

Law School Requirements

3

One semester

Environmental Law and Administrative Law are pre- or co-requisites to taking Earthrise. We also highly recommend that you take Environmental Litigation before or concurrently with Earthrise.

 

10-12 hours per week

Class meets on Fridays from 12 pm to 2 pm

 

 

Writing Professional Responsibility Other Law School Requirements
6 Two semesters

Does not count towards the cap on ungraded credits.

 

WIE on a case by case basis

Yes. 

Earthrise Ethics meets this requirement.

 Highly Specialized Requirement

Experiential Learning requirement

Natural Resources Certificate

Conflicts

As an Earthrise student, you will be assisting Earthrise attorneys in representing real clients in active litigation. Therefore, Earthrise must consider ethical conflicts of interest when reviewing student applications. Because of specific ethical requirements, a student cannot be enrolled in Earthrise and at the same time extern or intern with an entity or agency adverse to an Earthrise client, creating a concurrent conflict of interest. Earthrise professors will work with you to address your specific situation. We can usually find a way to allow you to both take Earthrise and extern for an agency that Earthrise often sues, just not at the same time.

Here are some examples that may help you in planning.

Things you can do:

  • You usually can extern with, or otherwise work for, a local federal judge or an adverse agency before or after you take Earthrise. We can usually work to screen you, even if you have a conflict because of such past or future work.
  • You can likely extern with the U.S. Department of Justice during your second year and still enroll in Earthrise during your third year. You would just need to disclose to us the matters you worked on while at the DOJ and then we can screen you from any matters that involved an Earthrise client.
  • If you took Earthrise during your second year, during your third year you could extern with the Department of the Interior Solicitor’s Office, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or other federal entities, even though Earthrise sometimes has cases against them. That agency can screen you from any specific matter where you may have an actual conflict.

Things you cannot do:

  • During the same semester you cannot both enroll in Earthrise and extern with the U.S. Department of Justice, because that agency is always representing other federal agencies that are currently in litigation against Earthrise clients.
  • You cannot extern for local federal judges when you are also enrolled in Earthrise because we have many cases before those judges.

Understanding past and concurrent conflicts can be tricky, but it is a very important aspect of practicing law. If you have any questions, please contact Earthrise Director, Allison LaPlante (laplante@lclark.edu), to help determine your eligibility for the clinic and assist you in your course planning.