Information for Students

Clients, skills, mentoring, camaraderie.  I loved everything about it.  
- Ingrid Warren, UC Clinic, ‘06

What’s Unique About the Unemployment Compensation Clinic?

Unemployment compensation cases are great cases for students.  They:

• move quickly from client interview through an administrative hearing, so students handle several cases from start to finish
• involve extensive client contact: students typically interview 3-6 clients
• are fact intensive, unlike law school, and they involve a narrow area of the law so students can get up to speed on the law quickly and focus on other skills
• rarely settle, so students hone their advocacy skills, doing direct and cross examinations and closing arguments

Substantive Practice Area: Unemployment compensation

Where We Practice:

• Washington State Office of Administrative Hearings
• When cases are appealed:
  • Superior Court of King or Thurston County
  • Washington Court of Appeals
  • Washington Supreme Court

Typical cases:

• Showing that our client is not disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits
  • Reasons fired from work are not misconduct
  • Good cause for voluntarily leaving work

Skills Focus:

• Client interview
• Fact investigation
• Direct and cross-examination
• Closing argument

I gained practical skills representing real people and applied my law school book learning.  
- Dani Franco-Malone, UC Clinic ‘07