The University of Maryland School of Law

Home
Programs & Centers
Law & Health Care
Experiential Learning

Law & Health Care Program

Practice-Based Learning

The Clinical Law Program allows law students, under faculty supervision, to represent real clients with real legal problems. The program received the John Minor Wisdom Award from the American Bar Association in 1991 for its "high standards of professionalism and outstanding contributions in promoting an open profession and an open system of justice." It was the first law school program to be so recognized.

Our Clinics afford second and third year students an opportunity to represent clients in cases involving access to or payments for health care. Clients have included low-income families and children, children and adults with disabilities, homeless persons and the elderly.

Student representation may require:

judicial, administrative and legislative advocacy;
drafting legal documents;
negotiating with adversaries;
educating clients regarding their legal rights.

The Clinical Law Program gives students the opportunity to focus on representing clients with other legal problems. Working with the hospital’s AIDS outpatient clinic, students advise and represent clients with HIV infection and their families. Working with programs serving the homeless, students advise and represent homeless clients. Legal issues confronting these clients and their student attorneys include obtaining public benefits and fighting discrimination in housing, employment and health care.

The following UM Law Clinics satisfy the Experiential Requirements for the Health Law Certificate:

Health Law Practicum and Externship Programs
Through the practicum and externship programs, students interested in health law may earn credit by working for organizationsand government agencies dealing with health care issues. Typically, students who elect to complete a health law practicum in the spring or fall spend 10 hours at their placements (roughly three hours per week, per credit.) Students can earn from two to 13 credits. In addition to field experience, both practicums and externships include a classroom component. Students who seek to satisfy the Experiential Component of the Certificate requirement, through completion of a practicum or externship must also enroll in the Health Law Practice Workshop, which is offered in the fall of each year. Our current externship placement list can be found here.

Practicums and Externships have included placements at the:

American Nurses Association
Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Maryland
Federal Trade Commission
The Health Care Cost Commission
Medstar Health
Medical and Chirurgical Society of Maryland
National Health Law Program
National Institutes of Health
National Partnership for Women and Families
Maryland Office of the Attorney General (Department of Health-Mental Hygiene and Medicaid Fraud Control Unit)
Johns Hopkins Health System, Corp., Office of the General Counsel
State and Federal Legislative Offices
University of MD Medical System, General Counsel’s Office
University Physicians, Compliance Unit
Center for Health Program Development & Management
Legal Services to the Elderly
Maryland Board of Physician Quality, Assurance/Compliance Unit
Maryland Board of Nursing
Maryland Health Care Commission
Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc.
National Human Genome Research Institute (NIH)
National Cancer Institute
Maryland Hopsital Association
Food and Drug Administration
National Multiple Sclerosis Society
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid, Office of the General Counsel
U.S. EEOC
Office of the Judge Advocate General, U.S.
US DHHS, Public Health Division
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Center for Health Program Development and Management, UMBC

All School of Law Externships are governed by the policies found here (including the Policy Statement on Externship Program)

Law & Health Care Program

Practice-Based Learning

More on Practice-Based Learning

Related Links