On January 16, the Florida International University Health Law and Policy Clinic hosted over 200 FIU nursing and social work students for a workshop entitled “Identifying Legal Issues that Affect Health.” Third-year law students Jonathan Abramson and Ingrid Benson-Villegas, and staff attorney Natalie Castellanos led the successful workshop in the College of Law’s large courtroom.
By Martin Haro
Eight law clinics are currently operating within the College of Law at FIU. There, law students are not only gaining hands-on experience in many areas of practice but also improving the lives of their fellow community members. In this second part of a two-part story, we tell you about some of the cases handled by the Carlos A. Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, the Investor Advocacy Clinic, the Health, Ethics, Law and Policy (H.E.L.P.) Clinic and the Community Development Clinic.
Since 2004, the College of Law at FIU has had a flagship clinical program that provides students with hands-on experience outside the classroom.
“We are very much a law firm focusing on educating the next generation of lawyers through close supervision of law students as they practice for the first time and provide policy advocacy and community education throughout Miami-Dade,” said clinical director Peggy Maisel of the program, which primarily serves underprivileged individuals and nonprofits that must meet a certain threshold to receive services.
In part 1 of this two-part story, we told you about the work that has been done at Consumer Bankruptcy, Environmental Law, the Family and Children’s Advocacy and the Immigrant Children’s Justice clinics. Now, we share the good word on the work of the Carlos A. Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, the Investor Advocacy Clinic, the Health, Ethics, Law and Policy (H.E.L.P.) Clinic and the Community Development Clinic.
On Saturday, September 15, 2012 the Florida International University Health Law and Policy Clinic staff attorney, Natalie Castellanos, participated in the National Council of Negro Women’s National Health Care Reform Tour.
Castellanos graduated from FIU College of Law in 2011, where she was active as president of the International Law Students Association and worked at the Carlos A. Costa Immigration and International Human Rights Legal Clinic.
The two-part event – a health fair and a health care reform information session – was held at Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens. Castellanos was one of six panelists who participated in the information session, discussing health care reform and its effect on the FIU Health Law Clinic’s clients to an audience of seventy. Joining Castellanos onstage was one of the clinic’s clients, Maritza Hernandez, who courageously shared her personal story of attempting to access health care after she lost her full-time job as a nurse, had no health insurance, and was diagnosed with a degenerative spinal disease.