Duke law clinic gives parents a hand
Students help younger pupils get what they need in school

By Paul Bonner

To all appearances, the only thing wrong with the 11-year-old boy was his repeated bad behavior and suspensions from school.

As the law students of Duke Law School's Children's Education Law Clinic took a closer look, however, a different picture emerged. The boy's primary problem might be academic, according to an evaluation they helped his family obtain. He had dyslexia that had gone undiagnosed. A law student from the clinic attended meetings between the boy's mother and school administrators that resulted in special education services for him.

The case was one of scores that the clinic, a community-service arm of Duke Law School, handles annually on behalf of public-school students and their families.

Helping families

Based in downtown Durham, the Children's Education Law Clinic provides legal advice and representation to help families obtain what federal law guarantees: an appropriate free education in the least-restrictive environment.

The service, free to low-income families, serves mostly students in Durham, Wake and Orange counties but also extends to the 11-county greater Triangle area. It handles about 60 cases a year. Most often, cases involve children's special educational needs or their long-term suspension or expulsion, said the program's director, Jane Wettach, who also is a professor in the law school. It is one of three legal aid clinics operated by Duke Law School; the others address legal issues involving AIDS and economic development in low-wealth communities.

Law school students also volunteer in several outside public-interest projects, such as assessing prison inmates' claims of wrongful conviction and tax filing assistance.

"We did a lot of interviewing and concluded [the Children's Education Law Clinic] was an area where parents and children needed advocacy, and it's very, very hard to find a private lawyer willing to do it," Wettach said.

Between eight and 10 law school students staff the clinic during the school year, for which, along with a classroom seminar, they receive course credit,. This summer, however, the clinic employed a rising second-year Duke Law student, Meredith Stewart, under an "extern" arrangement sponsored by the Houston office of global law firm Howrey LLP.

Getting experience

Stewart, from Morristown, Tenn., also is pursuing a master's degree in theological studies from Duke's Divinity School. She is working with the family of an epileptic girl who missed many school days and hours of course credit.

"Teachers weren't sending the work home, or it was getting lost," Stewart said.

"If she didn't receive appropriate accommodation from the school, it's a violation," Wettach added.

In another case, a school removed a young boy with autism from a classroom and assigned him a special teacher. But he was capable of grade-level work and needed to practice appropriate social interaction, his mother argued. The clinic helped her return him to a regular classroom.

About half of the clinic's clients have attention-deficit disorder, Wettach said. The clinic checks to make sure schools comply with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act by accommodating children with ADD, Wettach said.

"It's a very profound disability for a lot of kids," Wettach said. "It really interferes with their learning. But it often is perceived as kids being disrespectful, lazy, daydreamers or slow."

Unusual case

A more unusual problem absorbed Duke Law student Heather Holloway. She spent an extra semester representing Jarrett William Brown, a Wake County honor student expelled for having what he claimed were homemade fireworks but authorities initially said were pipe bombs. Holloway, named outstanding student by the Clinical Legal Education Association for her work, appealed the expulsion to Superior Court, reducing it to a suspension. The clinic's work also helped Brown's criminal attorney negotiate a plea to a misdemeanor fireworks violation.

The devices' discovery was not on school property nor even during the school year.

"We did not see any relevance to the school," Wettach said.

Most cases don't go as far as a lawsuit, however.

"Once our office gets involved, they don't need a lot of persuasion," Wettach said.

If necessary, law students represent clients in administrative hearings. More often, they accompany parents to "individualized education program" meetings with school officials.

One reason to help contest long-term suspensions -- defined as longer than 10 days but often imposed for the remainder of a school year, even early in it -- is that the punishment "does terrible things to the kids involved" and, in the long run, is counterproductive for schools as well, Wettach said.

"They don't make schools safer, they don't make kids behave better and they don't make that kid behave better," she said.

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