National Jurist - February 2009 - (Page 12)

PHOTO BY KENNETH SHOOK Third-year Seattle University law students Karin Tolgu, Grant ManClark and Andrew Buffington gain valuable experience in their Immigration Law Clinic, working alongside Professor Laurel Oates and Adjunct Professor Monika Batra to secure asylum for two East African woman. The motivators Students at Seattle University School of Law work to save two East African women from further abuse and intimidation ome law students get an opportunity to help others before they join a practice. In other instances, that opportunity either initiates or confirms a student’s choice of practice area. Both proved out for a group of students from the Seattle University School of Law. Third-year students Karin Tolgu, Andrew Buffington, Grant ManClark and Yunji Kim partnered By Dave Thomas with their Immigration Law Clinic to win asylum for two East African women. The women were victims of abuse for much of their lives, both in Africa and abroad as live-in domestic workers. They now live in Seattle and are able to live and work legally in the United States. The students assisted Adjunct Professor Monika Batra in representing the clients in their applications for asylum and, in the alternative, for T-visas, which are special visas that can be granted to victims of human trafficking. A ruling by the Board of Immigration that threatened to turn the women away spurred the students and several faculty members into action. In preparing to teach the Immigration Law Clinic at Seattle University School 12 THE NATIONAL JURIST February 2009 of Law, Batra approached the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project in Seattle for cases which were in need of representation. She was told about two gender-based asylum cases that involved domestic workers who were victims of trafficking. Batra, who taught the Immigration Law Clinic last year, sought the help of Professor Laurel Currie Oates, director of the legal writing program, and Edwin Abuya, who at the time was a visiting legal writing professor from Kenya. Together, the trio formed a fact pattern based on the clinic cases that was assigned to five first-year legal writing sections in

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of National Jurist - February 2009

National Jurist - February 2009 Contents Entertainment: Get Organized! The Firm Report: The Part-Time Lawyer News: Keeping Ethics Intact, New Law Deans, Latest Survey Findings Seattle Law Students Secure Asylum for East African Women Laptops in the Classroom Attorneys Dissect Health Law Law Students Contribute to 2008 Election Process Remembering Professors Obama and Biden Bar Exam Diaries How Well Balanced are Law Students? How to Choose a Summer Program Career Hotline Linguistic Gymnastics Disturbing the Peace

National Jurist - February 2009

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