This lightning session covers what we’ve learned in the first two years of operating a clinic focused on serving heirs’ property owners in North Carolina. Heirs’ property refers to tenancies in common that arise within a family when a landowner dies intestate. Often, interests in the property have descended over multiple generations, resulting in an extremely fragmented, cloudy title. Owners of heirs’ property, many of whom are descendants of enslaved people, face unique challenges improving their land, stewarding its environmental condition, and protecting it against predatory development—while court-ordered sales of land remain a persistent threat to heirs’ property land tenure.
With the support of local NGOs and other clinicians across the country, we have piloted a clinical approach to representing heirs’ owners in North Carolina, and have found it to be a fruitful pedagogical experience. Students learn substantive property law, but they also have the opportunity to think carefully and creatively about how to provide full-spectrum legal counseling to meet clients’ often complex and changing goals. Students also have to consider professional ethical questions about the identity of their actual client among many family members, confidentiality, and conflicts of interest. Meanwhile, we have been able to provide services for clients and support for a small ecosystem of organizations that assist heirs’ property owners in North Carolina.
In this session, we’ll share our experience so far, discussing:
• How we laid the foundation for developing this clinic at Wake Forest, including community partnerships and funding;
• Our model, in terms of student numbers, case assignments, semester learning objectives, and training and support;
• The challenges we experience in this work;
• How we are considering revising our model going forward; and
• Input from the AALS audience on their experiences and insights around heirs’ property.