Typically, student clinicians begin their year in the Federal Civil Rights Clinic with a swearing in ceremony at the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Urbana. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ceremony took place online this year, and the students were sworn in by the Honorable Sue E. Myerscough.

The Clinic will allow these students, working in teams of two, to represent previously pro se litigants in federal civil rights trials in the Central District of Illinois. This year's student participants in the Clinic include Lazaro Aguiar, Alex Dworakowski, Robert Harding, Claire McNally, Jalexus Osborne, Niha Reddy, Christine Schlegl, and Denise Vaughn.

Under faculty supervision, law students will work with their clients to prepare and try a civil jury trial during the 2020-2021 academic year. The students will be instructed and supervised by 2001 College of Law graduate and adjunct professor, Andrew Bequette, who is a shareholder at Beckett Law Office,  P.C. The students are selected on the basis of spring tryouts and are provisionally admitted to the trial bar of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois.