The Local Human Rights Lawyering Project based at the Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law provides training, coaching, and mentorship to legal aid attorneys and public defenders with the aim of integrating the human rights framework into daily work at the state and local level in the U.S. The Project has been working closely with twopartner legal aid organizations, Maryland Legal Aid and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, for the past year with great success and has developed a Handbook on Human Rights in the U.S. for Legal Aid Attorneys which is available for download online here.
* For more information on the training or to register, please visit the website. *
July 18, 2013 Training Agenda
9:00am – 9:15am – Welcome & Introductions
9:15am – 9:30am – Introduction to the Local Human Rights Lawyering Project
9:30am – 10:30am – Human Rights 101
This session will provide a basic overview of human rights law, and the human rights standards and strategies that legal services lawyers can engage to advocate on behalf of their clients. Participants will gain an understanding of the sources of human rights in US law, as well as the international and regional human rights systems that the US participates in and US obligations under human rights law.
10:30am – 10:45am – Break
10:45am – 12:15pm – Human Rights as Applied to Workers Rights & Housing Cases This session will introduce participants to the basic strategies that US advocates can use to bring human rights into their everyday work. Specifically this session will focus on human rights as applied in housing and domestic violence contexts. It is designed to provide the background necessary to strategically integrate human rights into litigation and advocacy work. Using the Human Rights in the U.S. Handbook for Legal Aid Attorneys, we will explore specific examples of persuasive human rights arguments in state and federal court.
12:15pm – 1:15pm – Lunch Break
1:15pm – 3:00pm – Applying Human Rights to Your Cases
Participants will break into groups to go over sample intakes (We ask each participant to please bring a sample intake from their office, a fairly common fact pattern for a labor & employment or housing case, with private information removed). Each group will choose 1-2 intakes and use the Handbook to: design advocacy strategy; write up human rights arguments; take case from intake to completion. Each small group will then present human rights strategy, arguments, etc. for each intake chosen.
3:15pm – 3:30pm – Break
3:30pm – 4:30pm — Bringing Human Rights Home: Beyond Litigation
This panel will explore possibilities for legal aid attorneys to use non-litigation human rights legal strategies in advocating on behalf of their clients. Participants will explore legislative and other policy advocacy, organizing, education and training, engaging with UN mechanisms, and ways in which they can incorporate a human rights framework into the attorney-staff relationship.
4:30pm – 5:00pm – Closing Thoughts & Begin Discussion on Where to Go From Here
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