Clinics Newsletter - Volume 10, Issue 2: October 2025
Note to students: The first-round clinic applications are due by Friday, Oct. 24, 2025, and the deadline for second round applications is Friday, Nov. 14, 2025.
Mediation Clinic Students Assist Small Claims Court Litigants
In the mediation clinic, BLS students mediate cases from the Brooklyn Small Claims Court under the supervision of the professor or a mentor with experience mediating these cases. Small claims court is democracy in action, a place where anyone can pursue a small claim, for a filing fee as low as $20, and seek relief. As one of the court’s judges put it “but for the small claims court, the parties would have no other choice but to take the law in their own hands” In this polarized world, the clinic offers individuals a chance to mediate their dispute by talking to each other – with the help of the students- and through seeking a better understanding of their own views, the view of the other party and the reality they face. The skills the students learn are useful for any conflict, whether it involves negotiating a settlement in litigation or conducting difficult conversations with a client or in their personal lives.
(L to R) Students Joseph Saccamano ’27, Rene Soto-Rivera ’27, Catherine Dirksen ’27, Diego Arvelo ’27, Hon. Pamela P. Fynes, Professor Michelle Minovi, Mia Furnanz ’27 and Jason Fiske ’27 at Small Claims Court in Brooklyn, Night Court, Sept. 9, 2025.
Safe Harbor Clinic Clients Lawful Permanent Residents—At Last!
A longtime client of the Safe Harbor Project—and his entire family—received their green cards in August. The clinic’s client, a Yemeni national, was persecuted by the Houthi rebels and his family members were grievously harmed after he left the country. His asylum application was filed during the Covid shutdown but ultimately he had a successful interview in 2022. His wife and three children were also granted asylum and left Yemen to join him. They are all doing well and finally have permanent residence.
The Work of the Community Development & Movement Infrastructure Clinic Sometimes Comes with a Crunchy Chicken Wrap
The Community Development & Movement Infrastructure Clinic (“CD-MIC”) uses the tools of corporate and transactional law to support grassroots efforts to make New York—and the country and the planet—more equitable, sustainable and just. With that mission, the majority of our clients are nonprofits, but what do our business entity clients look like in this context?
Last semester, students in the CD-MIC represented a new worker-owned cooperative (a “worker co-op” for short) called Pretty Horse. Pretty Horse operates a food cart that specializes in chicken Caesar wraps. The wraps are delicious, but the importance of the project goes beyond a satisfying lunch. A worker co-op, unlike most business corporations, is owned and run by the people who work there. Instead of outside investors pulling strings from a distance, the workers themselves are both the shareholders and the decision-makers for the business. The fundamental cooperative principle is “one worker, one vote,” meaning that every member has an equal say in major decisions, regardless of whether they’ve worked at the business for six months or six years, and even if they earn a larger salary or invest more capital in the business than the other worker-owners.
The worker co-op model flips the usual corporate script: In a traditional corporation, investors reap the profits while employees just trade labor for wages; in a worker co-op, the workers who create value for the business are also the ones setting the direction for the business and sharing in its rewards. Profits are distributed based on how much labor a member contributed, not how much money they invested. Capital can still play a role—co-ops might take loans or admit limited outside investment—but these are capped so that ownership doesn’t shift away from the workers. This keeps power grounded in labor, not capital, and gives members stability against outside control.
Pretty Horse was formed by a group of current and former labor organizers, in part as a test for the feasibility of the cooperative business model for food carts in pricey New York City. Students helped the group incorporate as a cooperative corporation, decide on an equity structure, draft bylaws, and navigate food and employment regulations.
For law students, worker co-ops raise fascinating questions: How do you structure bylaws to protect worker control? What happens when members disagree or when the co-op wants to grow? And how does this model interact with corporate law doctrine, which often centers shareholder primacy? Worker co-ops are both practical businesses and exciting experiments in re-imagining a more equitable economy—and they challenge us to think about law as not just a set of rules, but as a toolkit for shaping who gets to own, decide, and benefit within any one enterprise.
LGBTQ Clinic Students Negotiate Large Settlement for Client in Federal Civil Rights Case
Chelsea Jones ’26, Justin Murphy ’26, and Spencer Barisch ’26 represented their client, E.G., at a settlement conference before Magistrate Judge Cho of the federal court in Brooklyn along with co-counsel, Adena Wayne of the New York Legal Assistance Group. Ms. G is a transgender woman who applied for a New York City job hoping to find a stable, fulfilling career. Instead, she endured anti-trans discrimination and sexual assault during the application process, leaving her traumatized and out of work. Ms. G achieved a $400,000 settlement to end her lawsuit against the city. The student team worked on all aspects of the client’s case including defending her deposition, drafting discovery requests, writing the complaint, negotiating with opposing counsel, and addressing the judge on Ms. G’s behalf. Landon Brickey ’26, Eric Simon ’25, Sinbay Tan ’25, Amy Chang ’24, and Sydney Korman ’25 worked on the case in previous semesters.
L-R: Spencer Barisch ’26, Justin Murphy ’26, Chelsea Jones ’26 and Professor Susan Hazeldean outside the Eastern District of New York courthouse
Recent BLIP Highlights
With 39 students in the Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy (BLIP) Clinic this past semester, BLIP has been busy as usual. Among the dozens of clients BLIP has been servicing over the past few months, many have evolved with the times and have begun deploying AI to disrupt such sectors as law, health, mental health, real estate, and even cannabis production and regulatory compliance. BLIP has also been helping creators, including young musicians, artists, filmmakers, and entrepreneurs. BLIP has also worked with a few community organizations designed to incubate novel ventures. One in particular — TRIIBE — is helping young, nonprofit entrepreneurs scale from sophomore to senior year of college. Among the young entrepreneurs in the network are college students advancing such noble causes as eliminating scarcity of food, water, shelter, healthcare, education, and energy. One of the more innovative BLIP clients – Somnistics – is creating a semantic nervous system meditation app and fitness tracker, designed specifically for people in high-stress environments such as emergency room nurses and doctors. BLIP has been working on an array of data privacy, medical compliance, IP protection, and corporate structure and financing work.
BLIP supported Brooklyn’s Center for Urban Business Entrepreneurship in hosting an event on September 29 on Navigating the Black Box of New York Government. Professor Jonathan Askin moderated a stellar panel that included Bradley Tusk, David Yassky, Regina Myer, and Jamie Ansorge, who dove into maneuvering through the minefields of city, state, federal, and international political waters and discussed how to push for ethical innovation in a world that might not feel quite ready for it.
New York City Council Legislation and Policy Clinic Students Pitched Their Own Ideas for Local Laws
Local government is where so many of the policies that impact our day-to-day lives are debated and decided. For New York City, that occurs in the City Council, our local legislature. Each spring, the New York City Council Legislation and Policy Clinic brings a group of ӣƵ students into that world to work on legislation and policy alongside the attorneys of the City Council's Legislative Division.
Students conduct legal and policy research, draft committee reports, attend meetings, draft bill text, and learn firsthand about the legislative process.
As part of the clinic's seminar, each student also develops, researches, drafts, and pitches their own original idea for a local law. The Spring 2025 students pitched some creative and well-researched ideas, including:
- Requiring a new material to replace asphalt for all city roadways
- Closing of a large swath of midtown to non-emergency traffic
- Restructuring the city's public health communications for the social media age
- Legalized open container zones
- And more!
Each student in the clinic has a unique experience as they work on different policy issues, but all are joined together through the shared experiences of the seminar, including tours of City Hall, meeting with council members, conducting a mock hearing, and discussing issues in class sessions. This class is only offered in the spring of each year, and any students interested in local government, legislation, or policy are encouraged to apply.
(Clockwise from L to R): The NYC Council Legislation and Policy Clinic gets to work with Council Member Gale Brewer, Professor Brad J. Reid, and students D'Shandi Coombs ’26, Noah Goff ’26, Riley Batman ’26, Nicole Strzepek ’26, Noah Martz ’25, Ravi Rosen ’25, Albulena Uka ’25 meet for an informal conversation on city government and CM Brewer's career.
(L to R) Professor Brad J. Reid, Chief Sgt-at-Arms Rafael Perez, and clinic students, Noah Goff ’26 (behind Perez), D'Shandi Coombs ’26, Noah Martz ’25 in the Committee Room of City Hall.
L To R: Clinic students conducting a mock hearing (as both Council Members and witnesses) in the City Council's 14th floor hearing room. Students are 'Council Member' Riley Batman ’26, 'Committee Counsel' Ravi Rosen ’25, D'Shandi Coombs ’26, 'Council Member' Noah Goff ’26, 'Council Member' Albulena Uka ’25, 'Council Member' Noah Martz ’25.
L to R: Clinic students conducting a mock hearing (as both Council Members and witnesses) in the City Council's 14th floor hearing room. 'Chair' D'Shandi Coombs ’26 (partially), 'Council Member' Noah Goff ’26, 'Council Member' Albulena Uka ’25, 'Council Member' Noah Martz ’25 and 'Lobbyist' Nicole Strzepek ’26.
LGBTQ Clinic Client Wins Asylum in Immigration Court
Rebecca Lelchuck ’26, Bilal Laghari ’26, Jinglin Dai ’26 and Quinn Eglow ’25 represented “Carla,” a transgender woman who survived horrific anti-transgender persecution in her home country in South America as well in Mexico before finally making it to the United States. Upon arriving in America, Carla was placed in removal proceedings and feared that she would be deported to face the same life-threatening violence she had endured in the past. Becca, Bilal, Jenny and Quinn interviewed Carla extensively and prepared a detailed affidavit about her experiences. They recruited an expert witness to testify about the danger she faced and gathered hundreds of pages of newspaper articles and human rights reports about the mistreatment of trans women in Carla’s home country. They also wrote a legal brief, gathered supporting affidavits and prepared Carla’s husband to testify on her behalf. Despite strident opposition from the government, the Immigration Judge granted Carla’s asylum case, and she can now live permanently and safely in Brooklyn.
L-R Professor Susan Hazeldean, Bilal Laghari ’26, Carla and her husband, interpreter Salome Freire, and Rebecca Lelchuk ’26