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For folks who are interested in doing public interest impact litigation (like ACLU), what classes do you recommend taking?

I got Evidence, Federal Courts, Jurisdiction and Choice of Law now.
Thanks!

Public interest classes.

employment discrimination, federal civil rights (i.e. sec. 1983 litigation), criminal procedure (or those would be my guess).

A. Nony Mouse wrote:employment discrimination, federal civil rights (i.e. sec. 1983 litigation), criminal procedure (or those would be my guess).

Yup. Maybe some FLSA classes and class action o ones too

A. Nony Mouse wrote:employment discrimination, federal civil rights (i.e. sec. 1983 litigation), criminal procedure (or those would be my guess).

Sorry I forgot to mention that I would love to focus on immigration law, although I do believe at least employment discrimination and federal civil rights would be relevant.

oh, well, then immigration law but actually, having some sense of the overlap with criminal law would probably be helpful.

Remedies

Realistically, whichever classes will put you on track for a prestigious federal clerkship and/or a fellowship like the Skadden. These jobs are very, very difficult to get. Picking courses pales in comparison to landing the right clerkship or fellowship.

Taking your question on its own terms: I agree with the posters who said Remedies, because every impact lit case requires you to know how injunctions and other equitable remedies work. It's absolutely essential, and it's surprising how often otherwise good lawyers fuck it up. A course on section 1983 would be very helpful. Fed Courts and (to a lesser extent) other courses that touch on civil procedure in the federal courts are probably helpful. Clinical work is probably very important, depending on the clinical opportunities available to you.

If you want to do immigrants' rights work, you absolutely need to take a course on immigration law (or else learn it some other way, like clerking in a circuit with a heavy immigration docket). The field is complicated and esoteric. I would also strongly recommend taking Admin: immigration law is really just a subset of administrative law.

Criminal procedure might be somewhat helpful for 4th Amendment issues, and some 5th and 6th Amendment issues, but I don't know of any law school classes that teach you the kinds of crim-imm issues that are most likely to come up in immigration work. I'd probably do Employment Law and/or Employment Discrimination first--largely on the theory that, if you don't get an impact lit job, but you still manage to do immigrants' rights work, workers' rights will be a huge part of your practice.

I don't see a course in Choice of Law being very helpful, because your choice-of-law analysis as an impact litigator doing immigrants' rights work is always going to be "what circuit are we in right now?" I don't see Evidence being very helpful, because you're never going to go to trial, and you don't need a whole course to learn what little you'll need outside of trial. (And, honestly, you can just read the FRE to answer like 80% of the evidence questions you're likely to have.)

sadly, fed courts.