Duke Law’s Civil Justice Clinic a win-win

Law students get a leg up; underserved communities get free legal help

When John McDaniel J.D.’25 heads to his first full-time job at a New York law firm, he’ll bring with him experience few new associates can boast. He has already won an administrative court hearing and argued an appeal brought by the state of North Carolina.

He lost his first-time jitters of appearing before a judge, thanks to the semester he spent in Duke Law’s Civil Justice Clinic.

“It’ll never be my first time walking into court again,” said McDaniel. “I was excited about going into the clinic because I want to be a civil litigator, and I thought it would be a great experience directly representing clients. But I really didn’t expect to get all the courtroom experience I received, and I never expected to get superior court appellate litigation experience.”

Launched in 2014 as a partnership with Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC), the Civil Justice Clinic trains students to handle litigation from fact-finding to trial as they represent low-income North Carolinians in housing, consumer protection, unfair trade practice, occupational misconduct allegations and other legal matters under the supervision of clinic instructors and LANC attorneys.

Students must be in at least their third semester of law school to enroll in the clinic.

“There’s no prerequisite to enroll, so law students typically come in with limited knowledge,” said Jesse Hamilton McCoy II, a law professor and director of the Civil Justice Clinic. But by the end of the semester, many have undergone a transformation.

That’s the case for McDaniel, who confessed to feeling “terrified” during his first court appearance to argue for his client, a health care worker accused of patient neglect. By the time he argued the state’s appeal he had developed into a polished advocate.

“John did a phenomenal job arguing against a very experienced assistant attorney general,” McCoy said. “The judge even remarked in chambers about how great his argument was and how he was better prepared than most lawyers that come before him in superior court. Those experiences really show the value of our clinic.”

Luis Pinto J.D. ’18 is now a supervising attorney for Legal Aid’s Ahoskie office in Eastern North Carolina. During his first semester in the clinic, he got to argue a day-long trial before a state administrative law judge in Raleigh.

“We had at least six witnesses, a huge binder full of exhibits and a blown-up demonstrative aid,” Pinto said. “It was probably five years before I tried a trial that long at Legal Aid.”

And in his second semester, Pinto deposed several police officers. It was two years before he conducted a deposition in his current job.

“It was tremendously helpful to have both of those experiences under my belt when I came to practice law,” Pinto said. “As a Legal Aid lawyer, you can be in the courtroom independently much sooner than you might be at a firm, and not being afraid of a trial or a deposition was an incredible asset.”

A veteran litigator in both civil and criminal courts, McCoy uses his losses as well as his wins to teach students not only practical courtroom skills but also about the different factors that can play into judicial decision-making. His insight can help soften the blow with students when cases don’t go their way.

That’s what happened with McDaniel’s case. While McDaniel got an initial win for the client in administrative court, the judge decided against him in the state’s appeal. As McDaniel absorbed the ruling, the judge’s praise barely registered.

“I don’t think I appreciated it at the time, or even now, because it’s difficult to fight really hard for your client and then lose,” he said. “I thought we’d put together a really good argument, and now our client is going to be out of a job for a while because we didn’t win.”

Professor McCoy added, “Sometimes all you can do is just give your clients the best representation you can and make it hard for the other side to win. It definitely has its ups and downs. But that’s also good experience. You learn how to manage clients and their expectations—and how to take an ‘L’ sometimes.”