Ninth Circuit Appellate Clinic

Chapman's Ninth Circuit Appellate Clinic was founded in 2000.  Under the supervision of Adjunct Professor Peter Afrasiabi, the clinic provides students with real-world experience litigating significant federal cases at the appellate level.  During this year long program, students are assigned a case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the fall and work during that semester on developing the legal theory and writing the brief for the case.  During the second semester, students draft a reply brief and then engage in substantial moot court preparation for oral argument in the Ninth Circuit.  The students end the second semester by arguing the case to the Ninth Circuit in Pasadena, California.  Every year, the students perform admirably, and have drawn strong praise from the federal bench for the quality of their advocacy and their dedication to cases that need pro bono appellate counsel.  The class, open to 3L's, affords students an important opportunity to work on a real case for a real client where the factual and legal complexities of a case are not manufactured moot court scenarios.  Thus, the class provides an important bridge between the academics of law school and the world of lawyering.

Over the years, the Clinic has litigated many cases raising novel and important questions of constitutional and federal law.  A sampling includes the following:

• The Clinic secured an important victory against the Immigration & Naturalization Service when the Ninth Circuit held that the INS’s notice of appeal procedures applied to aliens violated the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process.  The published opinion, Vargas-Garcia v. INS, 287 F.3d 882 (9th Cir. 2002), required the INS to rework its policy to address the unconstitutional structure previously in place.
• The Clinic has prevailed in the Ninth Circuit in protecting the Sixth Amendment rights of the Clinic’s clients to effective assistance of counsel.
• The Clinic also has litigated several other high-profile cases, ranging from the constitutionality of California’s Three Strikes regime in certain circumstances, to the repatriation of Nazi-looted art to the rightful owners, and to the constitutional rights of a nuclear family to avoid deportation due to the deficient immigration status of one of the family members.
• The clinic has also prevailed in several other immigration cases, preventing the unlawful deportation of individuals to foreign countries from South America to the far East to the Middle East, where they faced a significant risk of persecution.  For example, the Clinic has:
  
  (1) prevented the deportation of an elderly woman to Armenia where she had been persecuted on account of her religious beliefs,
  (2) prevented the deportation of a man to Peru where he faced risk of torture by the Peruvian military,
  (3) prevented the deportation of a woman based on in absentia order of deportation,
  (4) prevented the deportation of a child to Honduras where he would be homeless, and
  (5) secured remand orders so immigrant clients can have their day in court on cancellation of removal applications. 
  

The Clinic also has litigated cases involving persecution of Cambodian freedom fighters by the ruling Cambodian communist regime, as well as cases involving persecution of Zhong Gong practitioners by the Chinese government.

In December 2008, the Clinic received special recognition by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski for the school's participation in the Ninth Circuit's Pro Bono Program.  Nationally recognized law firms, including O'Melveny & Myers and Snell & Wilmer, also were recognized at this event.  In 2006, the Clinic was profiled in the Los Angeles Daily Journal in the front-page article, "Students Fight for Immigrants," which noted, "The clinic is one of a handful of such programs around the country that are becoming a safety net for poor immigrants who face serious legal battles to stay in the U.S."
 
The Clinic's Director is Adjunct Professor Peter Afrasiabi (www.turnergreen.com 714-434-8750) who co-teaches the clinic with Adjunct Professors Kyhm Penfil and Kathryn Davis.