Vanderbilt Law offers a variety of courses and experiential learning opportunities in areas related to social justice, including non-litigation strategies for social change; race and the law; drug law and policy; domestic violence; labor and employment; poverty law; mental health law; bioethics; immigration; the death penalty; and wrongful conviction.
Students can earn credit by participating in a rich variety of supervised externships, not only in Nashville but also in other parts of the country and around the world. The Social Justice Program encourages students to seek out externships in areas related to social justice, and the program faculty is well-situated to help students find suitable placements.
Students interested in social justice issues may join a spring-semester non-credit reading group sponsored by the Social Justice Program. The group provides a forum in which students and faculty can explore together topics related to public interest law and lawyering through legal scholarship and work from other disciplines.
Discussions focus on substantive areas of social justice practice—including civil rights, poverty law, and the rights of defendants and prisoners—as well as the challenges that lawyers encounter when representing vulnerable or marginalized clients and causes.
Connect with the George Barrett Social Justice Program coordinator.