On August 28, 2019 at the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Urbana, College of Law students were sworn in by the Honorable Eric I. Long, United States Magistrate Judge for the Central District of Illinois, to participate in the Federal Civil Rights Clinic.
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 Max Bungert, Ben Cook, Nicole Diorio, Tori Roberts, Felicia Shaw, Maira Perez Velazquez, Olivia Romano, and Gabriel D. Young.
Under faculty supervision, law students will work with their clients to prepare and try a civil jury trial during the 2019-20 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 will meet in the classroom once per week in the fall and spring semesters, and as needed at other times. 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.