In this concurrent session, presenters, all co-counsel in the Oldaker v. Giles litigation, will explore the challenges and benefits of wide-ranging litigation and advocacy as tools of resistance and resilience in a clinical setting. In Oldaker, the presenters and their co-counsel filed litigation on behalf of fourteen women who suffered medical abuse at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia.
Through guided discussion and breakout exercises, this concurrent session will pose questions about the value, and risk, of engaging in wide-ranging advocacy and litigation in a law school clinic. Ten years after the Ferguson uprising, we have taken many lessons from social movements and how we can challenge and dismantle systems of oppression and injustice. We also continue to ask critical questions about the role that we, as lawyers, play in structural and systemic change. We hope to use this session to surface both the benefits and challenges of this kind of collaborative lawyering and to get audience input on best practices for moving forward.