Student Experience
The Elder Law Clinic has been called "one of the nation's premier intern programs for law students in the field of elder law", and written about in the North Carolina State Bar Journal. Enrollment is limited to 8 students per semester. Students work eight to ten hours per week and attend a two-hour weekly lecture taught by Clinical Professor Kate Mewhinney, or a visiting lecturer. The Clinic is a 4-credit course.
Upper level students get training in the general civil practice of law with an emphasis on the growing field of elder law. They represent clients in a range of matters, including wills, guardianship, fraud, and other concerns. They also participate in the Memory Assessment Clinic, and have two classes taught by medical school faculty.
The Elder Law Clinic helps students:
- understand the substantive laws affecting the elderly, such as guardianship and Medicaid
- improve their interviewing, counseling and writing skills
- increase their appreciation of the unmet need for legal assistance
- identify and handle professional ethical issues
The Clinic gives students direct experience advocating for their clients in many arenas, such as:
- negotiating with agencies such as the Department of Social Services
- handling some litigation, allowing them to argue civil motion hearings and to draft and answer discovery
- participating in mediation of family disputes and consumer issues
- preparing briefs and persuasive letters to decision-makers in administrative hearings
Because the Clinic is located in the J. Paul Sticht Center on Aging and Rehabilitation at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, law students have a unique opportunity to learn innovative ways of addressing the needs of elderly patients. By observing physicians and other members of a multidisciplinary team in the Memory Disorders Clinic, they will learn about mental capacity issues and measures of functional status that are frequently relevant to elder law problems. These problems include Medicaid and Medicare coverage, guardianship, and the capacity to execute wills, contracts or advance directives.
