With the possible elimination of LSC restrictions and appointment of new jurists more open to our clients’ concerns, the equal justice community faces new opportunities for advancing a more affirmative advocacy agenda. Will your program be ready to take advantage of these new challenges and opportunities?
CLAE’s Affirmative Advocacy training resources provide advocates with the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to use the law creatively to address the underlying causes of poverty and inequality. Whether offered as comprehensive multi-day training programs or through a combination of individual course modules, CLAE training resources can be deployed to help your advocates: identify systemic issues that harm low-income communities; develop litigation and non-litigation strategies for addressing these; and, successfully implement these strategies in ways that achieve results and build community power. Descriptions of potential individual course modules are listed below; depending on the module, these can be offered in-person, through CLAE’s online campus, or through a combination of forums.
The following selected modules are drawn from CLAE’s Affirmative Litigation training; please contact us for further information and details of how we can deliver these for you.
Finding the Affirmative ApproachExplores frameworks for identifying systemic issues in a typical legal aid caseload and identifying affirmative claims and causes of action to address them, with a focus on the use of 42 U.S.C §1983. Includes an interactive video lecture presentation on typical claims and causes of action and color of law requirements and utilizes a worksheet framework for analyzing potential litigation frameworks in the context of a typical legal services case study. Staying in the Game: Typical Justiciability Issues
Examines how to recognize and overcome typical justiciability issues such as standing, mootness, exhaustion, preclusion and sovereign immunity. Includes an interactive video lecture presentation on sovereign immunity and the 11th amendment by Prof. Lucy Williams, Northeastern University School of Law. Concepts are applied to a typical legal services case study using a case planning worksheet framework usable in actual litigation situations. Securing Broad Based Relief
Explores different approaches to securing relief for multiple injured parties, and/or secure an enforceable institutional policy change in a single piece of litigation. Reviews class actions, declaratory judgments, mass actions and the pros and cons of different approaches. Seeking and Securing Attorneys' Fees
Reviews the requirements to effectively secure attorneys’ fees under 1983 and similar fee shifting statutes, including: approaches for seeking; computation-required documentation; and fee entitlement implications of different settlement approaches. Complaint Drafting
Essential elements of a class-action affirmative complaint and tips regarding each essential component, including crafting a compelling preliminary statement, jurisdictional requisites, pleading facts to secure admissions, class allegations, expressing claims and drafting the prayer for relief. Damages and Immunities
Reviews the overlooked damage potential in many of our affirmative cases, the valuation approaches, proof of damages, damages and discovery issues, and qualified immunity for public officials. Case Planning for Major Litigation
Offers a comprehensive and easy to apply framework for litigation and discovery planning in complex affirmative cases, including how to: reduce claims to their legal elements; identify alternative fact scenarios for each element; develop fact investigation and discovery approaches to securing proof of each fact; and, organize the product of discovery for the efficient analysis, retrieval and use at trial. Surviving a Motion to Dismiss
Explores how to anticipate and defend against a likely motion to dismiss in a typical 1983 case. Specifically, addresses how proper preparation, artful pleading, and careful choice of parties and forum can insulate your case against a motion to dismiss and, if one is forthcoming, how to argue it effectively. Includes a video demonstration of a motion to dismiss argument in a typical legal services affirmative before an actual US District Court Judge, followed by informal debrief of the argument with the judge and both counsel.