Investing in the case: Lessons from Spring 2020
Spring 2020 has been an unprecedented semester at the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. We started with a full classroom, weekly team meetings at the conference table, and busy days in the pods where the students have their workstations. Teams had hearings scheduled and site visits planned. Over spring break, those plans changed abruptly as Duke — and much of the rest of the state — transitioned to operating remotely.
We sat down with six Clinic students to talk about their experience: Lisa Myles, Hannah Smith, and Julianna Schroeger, Nicholas School of the Environment; Dylan Stonecipher (Advanced Clinic), Duke Law; and Molly Bruce (Advanced Clinic) and Victoria Rose, who are pursuing joint degrees from the Nicholas School and Duke Law. Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
What skills did you get to use and build during your time in the Clinic?
Lisa: I found working on a multidisciplinary team and balancing or figuring out my work priorities in an ever-changing environment to be good experiences. Our case was really legal-work heavy, and the deadlines were changing, especially once the pandemic came about. Working closely with everyone amidst all that was really good practice.
Hannah: Interdisciplinary communication was a huge skill I learned. And also in general, especially with the pandemic and being remote, communication is key. Clinic helped me develop those professional level communication skills.
Juli: Expanding my language and understanding of environmental law and how the legal system works has been really beneficial. I’ve also applied the skills that I’ve gained in other classes, like using GIS in a way that’s useful to someone in the real world. It’s been cool to see that I can take what I’m learning in other classes and apply it to a real life problem. I also learned a lot from my advanced Clinic partners, especially about the law. They had a deeper understanding of the case and were able to help me out with wrapping my head around it. It was helpful to learn from other people on the team.
Dylan: There are three big ones: communication, writing and research, and collaboration. The biggest one was writing. I took a lot of classes to improve my writing skills. But the research and writing opportunities that the Clinic provided were by far the most extensive and vigorous opportunities that I came across. Second is client communication, the opportunity to go back and forth with clients and discuss their goals. The third is collaboration. Working with somebody with an area of expertise that is different than my own and producing products that were really targeted from the legal sense but also had factual and scientific background — that was essential to our team’s success. Our strengths complemented each other’s.
Were there any experiences, good or challenging, that stood out?
Dylan: To me, the key one was the opportunity to invest in the case. The thing that makes the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic special is if you invest, you can change the course of the case. You can provide insight that is otherwise not there. I would tell incoming students not to be afraid to spend your first 20 hours reading about the case. Spend as long as you need getting into the weeds so that you really see where it’s going. If you really get to know the case and understand the story of the case, then you can add something to that story. You’ll make a huge difference, and you’ll have so much more fun.
Lisa: Getting to do a site visit early on in the semester was very valuable. You realize at that point that this is very real for these people, and these are their lives, and you’re having a very real impact, and so you feel like it’s that much more important that you’re spending your time doing this.
Victoria: Originally we had been thinking that we would go on a big sampling trip and do a community presentation, but all of that ended up getting canceled. Figuring out our next project and keeping moving was a challenge, but one that I think we met.
What was it like to transition to learning remotely?
Lisa: Challenging. At first the news was pouring in, and you just feel like “I can’t even think about school right now.” But it definitely got easier.
Molly: It was pretty surreal, but on some level, it was kind of nice to have a level of normalcy by returning to classes and being able to pour my energy into doing the work. When things ultimately return to normal, I think we’re going to see business and even educational institutions recognizing that more work can happen remotely. Doing remote work, knowing how to represent people in a legal capacity from your computer — just having that experience is valuable.
Hannah: It definitely felt surreal at first. It’s just exhausting to be on Zoom calls all day. I never considered myself an extrovert, but I realize now that I do appreciate human interaction. It’s also kind of difficult too because I was home for spring break, so I just stayed home. I’ve helped take care of my grandparents and other family members, and making sure that everything’s good at the house. It was a strange transition.
Juli: I missed my team, I realized that I drew a lot of my motivation from my peers. And in it all, like Lisa said, it was really hard to understand that life is still going on. I just thought everything was going to stop. But as I’ve adapted I’ve regained a sense of the importance of what I’m doing.
Dylan: The transition to working remotely was hard in certain ways but honestly not that difficult overall. Our team had really good communication skills. We were very well-versed in Zoom calls, phone calls, communicating with the client through email. It was difficult to not have the opportunity to like pop in on Michelle or go ask Ryke a question. That’s really one of the benefits of being in the pods — this opportunity to go bounce ideas off of your supervising attorney and the people that you trust, and so that was a little hard. But we accounted for that. I think honestly the Clinic was probably the smoothest transition that I had. I thought we managed to roll with the punches pretty well.
Victoria: For me, the clinic class was one of the classes that I still felt super motivated about and really pumped up to do the work for. I think that’s partly because of the client, knowing that someone is depending on that work, not just you. That’s been driving me through this time.
Hannah: I’m like that too. With the clinic, the client is still depending on you. All the work needs to still be done extremely well and to the best of my ability. It still needs the best that I have.
What are some things that have enabled you to keep going?
Hannah: Even though we no longer have to be in the Clinic pod in the Law School for set hours, it’s better to set aside time each day where you’re only working on school, and then turn off your computer and go outside, because you’ve got to get away from the screen.
Lisa: One challenge at first with this transition to online was finding some normalcy or balance. Once I was able to incorporate going for a bike ride, or baking something every week, or trying a new recipe, those things made it much easier to engage with classes. I encourage people to take long breaks from social media, even though you want to go on Facebook or Instagram to see what your friends are doing since you can’t see them in person. I notice such a mental shift when I take time away from that. It’s really about the news as well. You can check in once each day. You don’t need constant flow. It’s just — it gets to be too much.
Victoria: For me, it’s been really important to take breaks where I completely shut off and disconnect. Since I’ve been taking real breaks, I’ve been spending the same amount of time working but getting so much more done.
Molly: I think it’s been really important to recognize the things that we need as individuals. All Duke students are incredibly qualified and incredibly motivated and want to do well and are willing to push themselves really really hard and sacrifice on a personal level in order to get where they want to go academically and professionally. That’s across the board the case. You don’t get to Duke if that’s not the case. But I think this experience has made me realize I need that walk, I need that long bike ride, I need to recognize that you need to take care of yourself.
Is there anything else you want to add?
Lisa: I have so much gratitude for the Clinic faculty. They’ve been very caring and just each class period have made a point to make sure people are doing ok as individuals and just been very supportive. I just wanted to express thanks for them, and I’m sure others feel that as well.
Dylan: Michelle was fabulous. She trusted us. We had to earn that trust, but she was willing to say, “Yeah, go down that rabbit hole, see if there’s something there.” Clinic is the best thing I’ve ever done at law school. It set me up the most for my career. It’s reassured me that what I want to do is what I want to do.
Victoria: For me the Clinic really motivated me in terms of my long-term career and my interest in public interest. I feel more committed to helping people and more committed to the environment after seeing the impact that lawyers can have on people and communities.
Hannah: In the sciences, we can get so stuck in our labs and gathering our data that we forget that it impacts people. The Clinic is a great way to actively help people with science, inform people about science, and use it for bettering a community. I wish I could do this full-time. It’s made me realize which direction I want to go with my career. I love this work. If I could do this 40 hours a week, I would. It’s fun, it’s rewarding, and that sounds cheesy, but it’s the best class I’ve ever taken.
