Clinic Eligibility and Registration

The Legal Clinics provide an opportunity to gain hands-on lawyering experience. Our clinical faculty are experienced attorneys with expertise in their fields. You will provide legal counsel to real clients who need help with real legal issues.

The Legal Clinics are also a chance to give back to the community and contribute to DePaul’s Vincentian mission. Most of our clients are from the local community and lack access to quality, affordable legal representation.

The vast majority of our clients are indigent individuals and families who cannot afford a private, fee-paid attorney. Most of our clients are referred to our clinics through legal aid agencies, community organizations, or courts that have established partnerships with us.

Second and third year JD students are eligible to enroll, depending on which clinic you are interested in, and if a 711 license is required. Thus, rising 2L and rising 3L students are eligible to apply.

1L students (including Two-Year JD students who are in their first year of studies) are not eligible for clinical courses. MJ students may not take clinical courses.

Some clinics have prerequisites and co-requisites; please check the clinic descriptions for more information.

Pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 711, upper-level law students may be certified by the dean of the law school to be eligible to perform specified legal services under the supervision of a licensed attorney. Certain legal clinics require students to have, or be eligible for, a 711 license to enroll in the Clinic. For more information about the requirements for a 711 license, please see the University Academic Catalog here and the Student Affairs website here.

To apply, you must visit the Legal Clinics website and complete and submit the application form along with your resume. All of our clinics enroll by permission only. Students cannot enroll directly in a Legal Clinic on their own during the registration period, but must apply, be accepted and then the Legal Clinics will enroll you. To be enrolled, you must have sufficient space in your schedule.

Your resume in pdf format should be submitted as part of your application. Include your name e.g. Josh Clark _ Resume.

The Legal Clinics have a Priority Application Period ending with a Priority Application Deadline. Applicants who apply by the Priority Application Deadline will be considered first for open slots. For most of our clinics, all open slots are filled by applications received by the Priority Application Deadline.

If there are open slots available after the Priority Application Deadline, applications received after the Priority Application Deadline will be reviewed and processed in the order of receipt. Since our clinics are generally oversubscribed, we strongly encourage you to apply during the Priority Application Period for your best chance to be accepted into your preferred clinic.

The Priority Application Period and Deadline will be posted on the Legal Clinics website. For your reference, the Priority Application Period and Deadline are generally the 2nd and 3rd week in March for Fall semester registration and the 2nd and 3rd week in October for Spring registration, though that timing might shift by a week or so depending on the specific dates of law school registration.

Spring semester application for Fall enrollment:

Year-long clinics

• Asylum and Refugee
• Business Law
• Civil Rights Field Clinic

One-semester clinics

• Civil Litigation
• Criminal Appeals
• Croak Community Legal Clinic
• ImmigrationMisdemeanor
• TIP® Field Clinic

Fall semester application for Spring enrollment:

One-semester clinics

• Civil Litigation
• Criminal Appeals
• Croak Community Legal Clinic
• Misdemeanor
• TIP® Field Clinic

Please note the year-long clinics do not take new applicants for the Spring semester. 

Students applying after the Priority Application Deadline will only be considered for Legal Clinics with slots that remain open after the Priority Application Deadline. Please note that most of our Legal Clinics are oversubscribed so we encourage you to apply during the Priority Application Period for your best option to be accepted into your preferred Legal Clinic.

Please DO NOT email the clinical professor asking for a spot or if they are still taking applications. If you have questions about which clinics have available slots, please either visit our website for updated information or email the legal clinic at depaullegalclinic@depaul.edu  

The legal clinic staff reviews your application and sends it to the professor for review. The professor makes the final determination of which applicants to accept into the clinic. You will be notified of whether your application was accepted, placed on a wait-list or declined. 

Applications received by the Priority Application Deadline will be reviewed first. Those applicants will either be accepted into the clinic, placed on a Wait-List for the clinic the student applied to, or declined. If a student who was accepted into a clinic does not enroll or withdraws from that clinic, students on the Wait-List will be admitted prior to applications received after the Priority Application Deadline.

Applicants will be notified of their acceptance decision no later than the Friday prior to the date of the College of Law registration. Please visit the College of Law website for its registration information and date.

Yes, you can apply to a maximum of two Legal Clinics during the Priority Application Period, but you must list your first and second choice on your application. Students will be considered for their first choice clinic prior to being considered for their second choice clinic. 

Yes, you have three choices: Email us at depaullegalclinic@depaul.edu, call us at 312-362-8294, or visit us at the DePaul Legal Clinics. We are located in the O’Malley building on the 10th floor (please note, our offices are only accessible via the O’Malley elevators). Feel free to stop by and request a tour or contact us for more information!

Students are permitted to apply to more than one clinic, but are only permitted to take one clinic at a time. Students can take no more than 2 clinics in total. Also, please note that Clinics are considered non-classroom credits. With the exception of students enrolled in 3YP, the law school caps the credit hours a JD student can earn for non-classroom courses. For information on the policy governing maximum non-classroom credit hours, please see the Student Handbook available on the Student Affairs webpage. Students are encouraged to meet with the law school Academic Advisor to review the student’s current and anticipated accumulation of non-classroom hours.