General Practice Clinic

Top: Professor Ellen Scully, Columbus Community Legal Services Scully@law.edu.
Middle: Professor Stacy Brustin, supervising attorney Brustin@law.edu.
Bottom: Professor Faith Mullen, supervising attorney Mullen@law.edu.

The General Practice Clinic is a general practice law office that is designed to serve the legal needs of financially eligible District of Columbia residents. The caseload of the clinic encompasses the full range of civil law matters, including housing, consumer, family, probate, bankruptcy, and administrative law matters. Given the diverse array of cases handled by the General Practice Clinic, students have the opportunity to learn the personal and professional skills involved in providing complete and client-centered representation.

In addition to the time spent in the clinic on case-related work, students attend a three-hour seminar once a week. The seminar includes lectures and class discussions on substantive areas of law; participatory exercises in interviewing, negotiations, and selected aspects of trial techniques; discussions of ethical considerations, recent common law and statutory developments, and the clinic's current cases.

The supervising attorneys for students enrolled in the General Practice Clinic are Professor Ellen Scully, the former director of Columbus Community Legal Services who has worked at the clinic for more than 20 years, Professor Stacy Brustin, who has a diverse background in family law, poverty law, and community legal education, and Professor Faith Mullen, a CCLS alum, former senior policy advisor for AARP, and expert on federal aid programs.