Community Lawyering Clinic Goes Where the Need Is

As a law clinic student, Cyan Blackwell ’27 had become an expert on bills before the Connecticut General Assembly that her client was supporting. Once at the state capitol for that client’s event for lawmakers, Blackwell knew exactly what she needed to do: make breakfast.

Blackwell, a member of the Community Lawyering Clinic, had been supporting Mothers and Others for Justice’s advocacy for legislation addressing what’s known as the benefits cliff. The term describes what happens when people who receive public benefits get a small increase in income and are then disqualified from receiving assistance, sending them over a “cliff” of financial loss.

After the New Haven–based grassroots advocacy group asked the clinic to support its efforts to end benefits cliffs, clinic students got to work. They analyzed the problems with Connecticut’s current law and identified promising reforms adopted by other states. They developed a workshop to help Mothers and Others for Justice members share their stories with the Connecticut General Assembly. They testified on behalf of their client at a public hearing, explaining how benefits cliffs punish workers for earning more money, and urged the legislature to act. Students also prepared a one-page handout summarizing their research and came to their client’s legislative breakfast with more technical information ready to offer if asked.

As the event got underway, a member of the client team started telling a legislator her own story. Blackwell knew those words were more compelling than any legal or policy argument the clinic had developed. She began fixing plates of waffles and let her client talk. And that put into practice a key lesson of the clinic.

“One of the things in our clinic that we really subscribe to is that the clients are the experts,” Blackwell said. “They’re organizing around issues that directly affect them. They know better than us, even as lawyers, because they’re experiencing it.”

Taught by Clinical Professor of Law Jason Parkin, the clinic represents individuals and grassroots organizations, coalitions, and campaigns in New Haven and throughout Connecticut who are fighting for economic justice. Students work in collaboration with community members and groups, taking direction from clinic partners about what types of legal interventions are needed. Often, it’s not a lawsuit or legal filing. Students learn how lawyers can advocate for clients outside of court through activities like drafting and analyzing laws or policies, strategic planning and advising, media advocacy, public records requests, and community education. 

This clinic for me is really about skill building. We learn to write, we learn how to read cases, we learn coalition building.”

—Cyan Blackwell ’27

When Blackwell worked with Mothers and Others, she delved into several of these areas and appreciated being exposed to a wide range of legal skills. 

“This clinic offered the opportunity for me to be creative and work with community in different ways that are not traditional forms of lawyering,” Blackwell said. “This clinic for me is really about skill building. We learn to write, we learn how to read cases, we learn coalition building.”

The many approaches the clinic can take reflects one of its premises: the clinic must be flexible.

“Lawyering in support of organizing is often unpredictable, and the clinic must be willing to take on new types of matters and employ different forms of advocacy in response to evolving community needs,” Parkin wrote in his proposal for the clinic.

When Parkin joined Yale Law School’s faculty in 2024 to start the clinic, he took time to first learn about Connecticut. Traveling around the state, he met organizers, activists, and advocates with a keen understanding of the problems their communities were facing. He found grassroots groups and community leaders who devoted time and effort to their causes.

“They have ideas for what they would like to see changed,” Parkin said. “And a lot of those implicate the law in different ways. And they have ideas for how lawyers can support that work.”

But one thing these groups did not have was access to lawyers who could assist them. And that’s where the clinic comes in. 

The process of organizing itself is an exercise in building democracy: it is about the transformations that can occur when many ordinary people come together in common purpose.”

—Vivekae Kim ’26

Parkin, who prior to coming to Yale co-directed a clinic at the City University of New York School of Law, was familiar with Yale Law School’s clinical program from his previous stints as a visiting professor and a Robert M. Cover Clinical Teaching Fellow. Parkin sees the clinic as building upon the Yale Law School clinical tradition. Though its work may share some areas of law with other clinics in the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, the clinic is broad in its mission by design so it can address a variety of community needs.

One client is the Naugatuck Valley Project, a network of community organizations in the region around Waterbury, a city of 116,000 people about 20 miles north of New Haven. For decades, the organization has been working to hold the owners of Waterbury Hospital accountable to the community. In 2016, the hospital was sold to a private equity group, which residents say led to deteriorating conditions for both patients and employees. Anticipating another sale, the Naugatuck Valley Project wanted to make sure that the next owner would be more responsive to community needs. 

Vivekae Kim ’26 worked with the Naugatuck Valley Project on the hospital campaign and with U-ACT, a group made up of people in New Haven who are currently unhoused, people who have housing now but had previously lived on the streets, and housed people who support their cause as allies. 

“The process of organizing itself is an exercise in building democracy: it is about the transformations that can occur when many ordinary people come together in common purpose. It’s about the power that you and your neighbors have as a collective,” Kim said.  “In my view, lawyers who want to work with organizers must meet the challenges that lawyering in social movements can pose by developing organizing skills.”

The Naugatuck Valley Project first connected with the clinic for help pursuing a community benefits agreement, a legally binding contract spelling out what offerings the hospital would make to the community. To advise their client on how an agreement could work in Waterbury, students interviewed organizers and lawyers who were involved in developing and enforcing such documents in Detroit, Nashville, Los Angeles, and other cities. Later, when the hospital was taken over by a new owner, students shifted gears, advising their client on potential ways to work with hospital staff unions to secure benefits for the community. 

For Kim, learning how to work as a lawyer with community organizers has been a transformative experience. She said the clinic has changed the trajectory of her legal education. 

“It has just been an honor to work alongside such incredibly skilled organizers and to play a role in supporting their campaigns and their broader fights,” Kim said. “Every day, I feel inspired by their lifelong and relentless commitment to fighting alongside our neighbors.”