NYU’s School of Law will offer a joint program with the Innocence Project, a nonprofit focused on advancing social justice through legal advocacy for wrongfully convicted incarcerated people, with an inaugural class set to begin work in September.
The Innocence Project Post-Conviction Clinic will guide 12 second and third-year law students through direct work with clients who present strong claims of innocence, with some assignments tackling decades-old cases. During the yearlong program, students will open reinvestigations, search physical evidence and court records, and research legal arguments for wrongful convictions cases to support clients’ litigation.
NYU Law dean Troy McKenzie said the two institutions had been looking to collaborate “for some time,” and that the partnership arose as the Innocence Project sought to expand the scope of its work amid a “challenging period in this country.”
“Working with the Innocence Project enables us to provide our students — and the public at large — with critical expertise to the practice of law in the furtherance of justice,” McKenzie said in a statement to WSN. “We are institutions with similar values and have long known and admired one another’s work.”
The program will be co-led by the Innocence Project’s Senior Staff Attorney Jane Pucher and Director of Special Litigation Vanessa Potkin, who will also host a weekly seminar on common legal arguments, relevant forensic sciences and other relevant skillsets. Students will hone their ability to identify procedural misconduct, conduct bias-informed interviews and test DNA — one of the nonprofit’s specialties.
Students will also work with experts from the Innocence Project to gain experience in wrongful conviction-related research, data analytics and policy advising. In the future, the nonprofit plans to partner with other NYU graduate schools to expand its reach.
“They approached NYU Law due not only to the excellence of our students and our unparalleled clinical program, but also because we are rooted in the larger ecosystem of New York University,” McKenzie said.
Christina Swarns, the executive director of the Innocence Project, told WSN that the organization has worked with hundreds of students at the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University since its founding as a legal clinic at the school. Swarns cited that by partnering with New York City schools, the Innocence Project aims to help counteract New York’s historically high rate of wrongful conviction cases.
NYU has previously profiled and hosted attorneys from the Innocence Project, although this is its first formal collaboration with the nonprofit. Peter Neufeld — who graduated from the law school in 1975 and co-founded the Innocence Project — helped spearhead the partnership, according to McKenzie.
The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 to offer legal support for incarcerated people and advocate for prison reform. Initially based on research that incorrect identification by the eyewitness is the factor in most wrongful convictions, the nonprofit has since expanded to consider all forensic components in reinvestigation efforts — although it primarily takes cases where DNA plays a substantial role in clearing convictions. Since its founding, the organization’s attorneys have acquitted over 250 people who have collectively spent nearly 4,000 years in prison.
“The mission of the Innocence Project is to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions and create fair, compassionate and equitable systems of justice for everyone,” Swarns told WSN. “We are excited by the many ways we can collaborate with NYU, now and in the future.”
Contact Audrey Abrahams at [email protected].
