From publishing articles to winning cases to preparing students, the Drake University Legal Clinic faculty members have been very active professionally this past year and over the summer.
“The Law School has long been known for the quality of its clinical programs and that begins with the outstanding faculty that we have,” said David Walker, dean of the Law School. They’ve really had a terrific year and have done simply great work.”
Jerry Foxhoven, associate professor of law, interim executive director of clinical programs at the Law School, and director of the Middleton Children’s Rights Center, completed an article for the Barry Law Review for fall of 2007 entitled “Effective Assistance of Counsel: Quality of Representation for Juveniles is Still Illusory.” Foxhoven has also been named the chair of the Juvenile Law Committee of the Iowa State Bar Association. This summer Foxhoven also spoke as a faculty member for the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges conference training judges, lawyers and social workers in Louisville, Ky.
Robert Rigg, associate professor of law, completed a law review article, “The T-Rex without Teeth: Evolving ‘Strickland v. Washington’ and the Test for Ineffective Assistance of Counsel.” The article is scheduled to be published in the winter of 2007 in the Pepperdine Law Review. In addition, Rigg has completed a revision of the fourth volume 2008 edition of the Iowa Practice Series: Criminal Law for Thompson West. This summer Rigg appeared on several local news programs and was quoted by the Des Moines Register on various criminal cases.
Suzanne Levitt, director of the Drake Legal Clinic and professor of law, accepted an invitation from the dean of the University of Capetown School of Law and the director of the Children’s Rights Institute in South Africa to teach at and collaborate with the institute during her sabbatical this year. The institute is an interdisciplinary children’s rights program designed to represent children, advance the cause of juvenile justice and support children’s rights advocates in the field, much like Drake’s Middleton Center for Children’s Rights. While on sabbatical, Levitt also will research interdisciplinary program models and write an article for the New York University Clinical Legal Education Journal.
Sally Frank, professor of law, successfully defended several individuals who participated in a “sit in” at Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Des Moines office to protest the Iraq war and to read the names of Americans and Iraqi civilians killed in the war. The peace activists were charged with trespassing. Frank argued that the defendants were exercising their First Amendment rights and had a right to be at the office during regular office hours to make their views known to their government representative. After three days of trial, the jury found the defendants not guilty. Frank also taught trial advocacy this summer and represented a solider with posttraumatic stress disorder being deployed to Iraq.
Tara Elcock, adjunct professor and director of the Elder Law Clinic, managed approximately 70 general civil clinic cases for Sally Frank this summer. Elcock contributed more than 30 hours per week supervising both the Legal and Elder Clinics in addition to her court case duties.