Giving

Center for Legal Services

Two legal clinics—both working tirelessly for the community and the world—embody Vermont Law School’s core values. With the generous help of our supporters, the South Royalton Legal Clinic and the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic will move into one central, vibrant building—facilitating powerful mentoring relationships, hands on legal training, and tangible, often life-changing outcomes for both the students and the clients they represent.

Updates

• Project Timeline: VLS slated to begin construction June 2011. Construction project will last approximately 14 months. Clinics are scheduled to move into the Center for Legal Services in August 2012 (see slide show below for most recent plans).
• The renovation of the historic Freck's department store as the new home for the Center for Legal Services is estimated to be $3.5 million project. $1.2 million has been committed.
• Clean Energy Development Fund grant of $250,000 awarded for energy retrofits to the project.

South Royalton Legal Clinic

The South Royalton Legal Clinic (SRLC) provides approximately $1.5 million in pro bono legal services every year to Vermonters in need. Since 1979 Vermont Law School students have, under the supervision of full-time staff attorneys, worked pro bono on more than 2,000 formal cases and consulted on many thousands more from a cramped house on Chelsea Street in South Royalton. The clinic, in the words of former student clinician John Miller ’09, “instills hope and courage and shows people that they are not alone.”

Beyond what it does for the community, what the SRLC does for the students is also transformative. In many instances, its work exposes students to issues of inequality and injustice that they have not encountered in their own lives. No classroom experience can match the power of this human-to-human contact; no textbook or case study can fully convey the enormity or the nuances of the social problems behind the cases. This work puts a face in front of the law. The experience, for so many students, leads to a passionate, lifetime commitment to public service.

Learn more about the South Royalton Legal Clinic

Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic

The Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic also offers pro bono legal services to those who would not otherwise have access to it. Every year the clinic provides approximately $2 million in free legal services with the earth—and future generations—in mind. A law firm within a law school, this clinic’s dedicated group of students and attorneys have tirelessly litigated, defended, and advocated on behalf of wetlands and clean air and endangered species. They have stood up for the health of people living near illegal mining operations and for the culture of a native tribe threatened by a destructive liquefied-gas development. They have gone toe-to-toe with state and federal agencies and multinational corporations and have shaped environmental law and policy at the highest level.

As director David Mears ’91 likes to put it, the clinic is continually developing the next generation of expert environmental leaders, problem solvers, and advocates—equipping each of them to confront the complex challenges of environmental pollution, natural resource destruction, and catastrophic climate disruption.

Learn more about the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic

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Vermont Law School's legal clinics foster life-changing outcomes for underserved clients and the students who represent them. With the generous help of many committed supporters, a vibrant new center will expand essential legal services.