Racial Justice and the Law Clinic

Student attorneys in the Racial Justice and the Law Clinic (RJLC) engage in matters aimed at examining, addressing, and redressing racial inequities and other harms experienced by historically racially marginalized groups. The RJLC works directly with the Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law at Maryland Carey Law. The Gibson-Banks Center works collaboratively to re-imagine and transform institutions of racial inequality, marginalization, and oppression through education and engagement, advocacy, and research.

The RJLC’s scope is broad, as the Gibson-Banks Center’s issue areas include education, economic justice, employment, the criminal legal system (including the youth legal system), housing, health, voting, technology, transportation, and “emerging issues” (issues that we cannot anticipate today but will require immediate attention). Our lawyering methodologies, also broad, involve individual representation, policy and other forms of collective advocacy, community education, and research. The RJLC work is dynamic and responds in real time to local, state, and national events. As a result, it is impossible at this time to articulate, with precision, the breadth of projects we will undertake in Spring 2027. However, as Maryland’s legislative session runs from January to April, we will be heavily involved in the State’s legislative process, working on legislative bills that seek to redress racial injustice, advance racial justice, or imperil racial justice. Our work will include researching the issues embedded in the bills; strategizing with various stakeholders (including communities impacted by the proposed legislation) on the bills; providing testimony (written and oral) in support of or against the bills; and meeting with elected officials to advocate more directly on behalf of or against the proposed bills.

The RJLC will also work on projects that aim to repair, redress, and rebuild. One project will focus on supporting local advocacy efforts directed toward preventing Baltimore homeowners from losing their homes and building intergenerational wealth. Another project will focus on the recent rediscovery of a long-neglected burial site adjacent to the Cheltenham Youth Detention Center in Prince George’s County. The Youth Detention Center opened in 1872 as the House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children. The burial site contains the remains of children who were housed at the House of Reformation, when youth detention was segregated by law in Maryland. From 1872 to 1939, at least 230 Black boys died while in custody at the House of Reformation. The children lived in conditions that in some ways replicated slavery. The RJLC will assist efforts that are newly underway to investigate the conditions at the House of Reformation and to research, analyze, and recommend processes to repair families and communities.

The throughline of our work is collective advocacy, which includes working in collaboration with local, state, and national entities—neighborhood community groups, advocacy coalitions, non-profit organizations, and other law school clinics and centers. . Working in collaboration with community is vital to the change that the RLJC is committed to fighting for and realizing.

This clinic is a five-credit offering. It includes a seminar component that meets twice weekly. Student-attorneys in this clinic are required to average 17 hours per week. If your schedule will prohibit you from fulfilling this time commitment or otherwise prevent you from meeting your clients’ needs, please do not register for this clinic. If you plan to have a job, an internship, or participate on the trial team or moot court team, you are required to meet with Professor Pinard before enrolling to discuss whether you will be able to meet your clinic obligations. If you have any questions in this regard, please meet with Professor Pinard before enrolling.

All students enrolled in a Spring 2027 clinic are required to attend in-person clinic orientation on Friday, January 8, 2027, in addition to any clinic-specific orientation that the professor may schedule.