Third-year Hofstra Law student Gabriell Caceres has always had an interest in international law, so when she first learned about the Asylum Clinic at an Office of Career Services meeting, she applied as soon as she could.
“Instead of going the traditional route and going to work after law school I wanted to gain experience in the clinic setting. The one-on-one experience where I can see where I am as an individual and how I function in the clinic overall, I knew I could learn a lot from it.”
“I think it’s an experience that students get that you won’t get in any other capacity after you graduate, so it’s a wonderful opportunity. It’s an opportunity to test your own skills, your own ambitions and to also test what type of law you may want to practice.”
Hofstra Law offers many different clinics for students to participate in. The Asylum Clinic, under the direction of Clinical Professor of Law Lauris Wren focuses on student representation of applicants for asylum.
“Part of the Clinic experience is twofold, we have a class where we learn the actual material we’re expected to know and present on certain topics in asylum law, and we also do the clinic aspect which is actually working with the clients.”
Hands-On Experience
Students in the Clinic work with their co-counsel under the supervision of their professor to help clients obtain asylum interviews. Tasks such as writing memos, taking calls, and meeting client’s specific legal needs are all included in the work that they do.
For Gabriell being able to have “face-to-face interactions” with her client and work with her co-counsel taught her many useful skills that she’ll need for her future career in law.
“I learned about adapting, managing my time and my case load, and I also learned about working with other people. I had a co-counsel in the Clinic and the individual that I was partnered with was so different from me in so many ways yet similar in other ways,” she says. “We had to figure out how to bring our skills together so that we were stronger and better for the client and then we had to try to figure out how do we maneuver around the differences and meet in the middle.”
Professors also offer students valuable insights and critiques that help them grow in their studies.
“I have nothing but great things to say about Professor Wren, I think she’s such a great professor. She was really able to give me a lot of one-on-one guidance as well as a general assessment of my performance, along with my performance with my colleague. She would tell us about our strengths and she would also tell us about our weaknesses that we needed to work on. Those things helped us to really focus collectively on everything.”
Making Genuine Connections
The environment that the Clinic staff creates for students really “helped make the place” for Gabriell. During her time there she was able to make genuine connections with her peers, professor, and the Clinic staff.
“Being in the Clinic was kind of like being in a little family for me. It was very uplifting and very supportive,” she says. “Being that there were people there that were very like-minded in that we were all intellectually stimulated, we were able to have great banter. If you’re a person like me who really has a lot of value for that type of discussion and that type of people in your life then you would really benefit from it.”
The Big Impact
The Asylum Clinic gave Gabriell a renewed sense of self-confidence, brought her back to her roots, and helped her figure out her preferred work environment.
“The Asylum Clinic really taught me that I like people and that I enjoy working with them face-to-face. There’s so many different areas of law where maybe you’re tucked away behind a desk somewhere and you never see people, maybe that’s your thing. However for me it’s taught me that I could pursue something like asylum law. I could definitely do other things but I’ve recognized that I’m very enriched by the clinic type of structure and would like to see that in my future.”
For any student thinking about applying for a clinic she believes that they should go for it because the learning experience is beneficial in many different ways.
“I think it’s an experience that students get that you won’t get in any other capacity after you graduate, so it’s a wonderful opportunity. It’s an opportunity to test your own skills, your own ambitions and to also test what type of law you may want to practice,” she says.
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