A Different Kind of Healing
Clinic helps cure legal ills for those who can’t afford a lawyer
Desiree Hensley counsels low-income clients as part of her role as the new director of the law school's Civil Legal Clinic.
That was Desiree Hensley’s answer when asked about the importance of the legal clinic run by the UM School of Law. Hensley, the new director of the Civil Legal Clinic, added that “from the client’s perspective, having a skilled advocate, although you cannot pay for one, is extraordinarily valuable.”
Hensley first became interested in directing the Civil Legal Clinic after discovering that it is one of only a few organizations in the state that attempt to meet the crisis that poor and lower income people face when they have a legal problem. A Georgetown graduate, Hensley came to Ole Miss after working for AmeriCorps*VISTA and receiving an Equal Justice Works fellowship to help low-income tenants in the District of Columbia.
“I was incredibly impressed with the Civil Legal Clinic’s attorneys and the quality of work they have consistently provided their clients over a 20-year period,” Hensley said.
The UM Civil Legal Clinic was established in 1991 to enable second- and third-year law students involved in clinical and externship programs at the law school to offer free legal assistance to needy residents. Founded thanks to a federal grant, the clinic is also partially funded through the law school and private donors. This year the Mississippi Bar Foundation/ Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (IOLTA) awarded the clinic $80,000.
“Clinical education goes beyond a mere internship or externship experience,” Hensley said. “It is an opportunity to instill in young attorneys the importance of professionalism, which demands that lawyers help those in need. In the clinic, we believe that being a lawyer is as much a calling as it is a job and that we should all respond to the needs of those who cannot pay for our assistance.” The Civil Legal Clinic is getting another form of support this year thanks to the generosity of Morgan Lewis & Bockius. The firm offered a fellowship to 60 new lawyers after having to defer their employment for a year due to the economy. Lindsay Murphy, one of those new hires, decided to accept the fellowship and volunteered to work at the Civil Legal Clinic. “This is probably the only time in my career that I will have this opportunity to connect with and help out individuals who really need assistance and can’t afford to get it. I feel like one day, when I retire and relax, I will look back on this first year as an unexpected blessing,” Murphy said.
Amanda Smith, the Morgan Lewis & Bockius pro bono partner, agrees that the experience Murphy is getting at the clinic is invaluable.
“She’s going to have hands-on training working with clients, and that legal experience is not necessarily the experience of first-year lawyers,” Smith said. “Also at Morgan Lewis, we try hard to emphasize public service and return to professionalism. We hope that these Morgan Lewis Public Interest Fellows will help contribute to that culture of the firm.”
Currently the Civil Legal Clinic is divided into six units: the Child Advocacy Clinic, Consumer Clinic, Elder Law Clinic, Family Violence Clinic, Legislative Clinic and Street Law Clinic. Hensley said she hopes to expand the clinic’s services so that any law student who wants to enroll gets an opportunity to do so.
“We would like to offer services in the areas of consumer law, bankruptcy and family law. Despite the work we do, however, there is an almost overwhelming unmet need for more help here and throughout Mississippi,” Hensley said. “I want my students to understand that we lawyers are here to level the playing field for our clients, and that there is a beauty in working to overcome those limits and injustices even if we can’t always succeed.”
—Mary Stanton
