EXT: Pennsylvania Innocence Project (Quaglia)
Additional Information
Experiential CourseYes
Skills Training
Drafting Legal Documents
Other Professional Skills:
Grading
100% Other (Externships are graded Credit/No Credit. )
No
Class meets in person.
Course Continuity
Students are encouraged to stay home if you are ill or experience flu-like symptoms. If you miss a class for any reason, it is still your responsibility to make up the work missed.
I offer the following to students who miss class due to illness:
- If you are absent due to illness or some other unavoidable circumstance, email me and I can make PowerPoint slides or other class materials available to you.
Meeting Times/Location
TBA
TBA
Category
Clinics/Externships
Credits
4.0
** STUDENTS MUST BE AVAILABLE WEDNESDAYS FROM 9:00 AM–11:00 AM FOR PA INNOCENCE PROJECT STAFF MEETINGS AND TRAININGS, and they highly prefer you are able to spend the entire day on Wednesday working in their office.
***PLEASE ALSO SEE IMPORTANT ENROLLMENT PROCEDURES FOR EXTERNSHIPS AVAILABLE ON THE REGISTRAR'S WEBSITE.
This clinical program offers students the unique opportunity to exercise their lawyering skills by reviewing and investigating claims of innocence on behalf of Pennsylvania prisoners. Each student will be assigned cases under the supervision of Project attorneys. In the course of investigating factual claims and researching legal issues, students may review criminal files, interact with investigators, contact other attorneys, interview the client and witnesses, gather documentation, and prepare legal documents and memoranda. Students may have the opportunity to observe court appearances and visit Pennsylvania prisons. As a consequence of this work, students will have many opportunities to develop and hone their lawyering skills in interviewing, fact investigation, factual and legal analysis, legal writing, and problem-solving. The classroom component will cover topics including the key contributing factors to wrongful convictions, the state and federal legal framework for litigating innocence cases, investigative techniques and skills, the nature and uses of DNA and other scientific evidence, and re-entry challenges for exonerated individuals. As the semester progresses, students will explore the substantive and procedural issues in the context of the actual cases on which they are working as well as discuss the ethical issues common to this area of practice. Students are encouraged to be available for the full day on Wednesdays to work on their cases at the PAIP office.
Externship Seminar Requirements: To receive academic credit, students will be automatically enrolled in an in-person, semester-long Criminal Externship Seminar that meets at the Law School during the same semester as the field placement. Students will meet as a group for one hour every other week during the semester for a total of six meetings and will meet individually with the professor mid-semester and at the end of the semester. Shortly after course schedules are released, students will receive a Qualtrics Survey to choose one of two seminar times and should plan their course and work schedules accordingly. The Criminal Externship Seminar begins the first week of classes and students will choose either Tuesdays from 12 to 1 p.m. or Wednesdays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Students who previously completed a criminal externship and are doing another criminal externship at a different placement will be placed in an Advanced Criminal Externship Seminar. Those students must notify Professor Kathryn Quaglia at kquaglia@law.upenn.edu for a Qualtrics survey after course schedules have been released to arrange a convenient class meeting time.
Grading: The externship seminar and the field placement are combined for one Credit/No Credit grade. To receive credit, students must satisfy the field placement credit hours and all externship seminar requirements.
Credit Restrictions: No more than 14 semester hours (of the 22 co-curricular semester hour maximum) can be earned in externships (both Gittis and ad hoc externships). Students are not permitted to enroll in a Clinic and Externship in the same semester, or in two Externships in one semester. International JD students must seek and be approved for CPT (Curricular Practical Training) credit for the externship well before the start of the semester. Students should review important externship registration information: Enrollment Procedures for externships
Skills Learning outcomes: Demonstrate an understanding of the individual course skill; Demonstrate the ability to receive and implement feedback; Demonstrate an understanding of how and when the individual course skill is employed in practice.
Criminal Law and Procedure Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of criminal law and procedure; Perform legal analysis in the context of criminal law and procedure; Communicate effectively on topics related to criminal law and procedure; Demonstrate an understanding of the role criminal law and procedure play in society and their impact on other areas of law and society.
Public Interest Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of the varied legal aspects of public interest law; Perform legal analysis in the context of public interest law; Communicate effectively on topics related to public interest law; Demonstrate an understanding of how public interest law is connected to and affected by a wide variety of legal and regulatory structures and doctrines.