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“The worst thing you can say if you want to work in sports as a lawyer have security and safety in terms of representation, and where they
is that you’re a fan. It’s probably helpful to know the terminology and to feel welcome.”
have a basic level of knowledge, but you shouldn’t talk about how much “I want to congratulate the Law Center,” added Short. “The Law
you love the Houston Texans or Dallas Cowboys. That will turn your Center is one of the crown jewels of the University of Houston. The
prospective employers off.” legal profession is so important, and this is a law school that is moving
forward and making decisions for the right reasons.”
UHLC PROF. THOMPSON URGES CONGRESSIONAL The new facility brings previously scattered offices together in one area
PANEL TO SUPPORT EFFORTS TO IMPROVE THE and allows for further growth of the clinical program.
STATE OF FORENSIC SCIENCE SYSTEM “The clinic space now reflects the professional setting that corresponds
University of Houston Law Center Professor Sandra Guerra Thompson with the legal services our clinic students and talented faculty provide
extolled the success of Houston’s relatively new forensic science center to the community,” said Associate Clinical Professor Janet Heppard,
during testimony before a congressional subcommittee in February director of the Clinical Legal Education Program as well as the Civil
and called for federal support to improve that crucial component of the Practice Clinic.
criminal justice system nationwide. The Law Center’s clinical program gives students the opportunity
Plagued by botched test results, an independent audit that raised for hands-on practical experience by providing legal services in six
questions about the integrity of lab work in thousands of cases, and a practice areas: Civil Practice, Consumer Law, Criminal Defense,
rape kit backlog of more than 6,000, the Houston Police Department’s Entrepreneurship & Community Development, Immigration and
Crime Laboratory was reinvented as the Houston Forensic Science Mediation.
Center in 2014. The new entity operates independently of law “The clinic allows students to work on the types of cases they would
enforcement and is governed by a board of community volunteers, handle in their first five years of practice,” Heppard said.
including Thompson.
“Today the laboratory serves as a national model, pioneering cutting- In 2016, the clinic’s 95-plus students mediated more than 1,500 cases
in Justice of the Peace Courts and the Dispute Resolution Center and
edge practices in forensic science,” Thompson told members of the worked more than 20,000 clinic hours helping immigrants, indigent
House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, families, consumers, small businesses and non-profit organizations in
Homeland Security, and Investigations. “I believe these efforts can make Harris County and surrounding areas, according to Heppard.
a valuable contribution to national discussions about the future of
forensic science in the United States.”
Thompson specifically suggested the system could be improved by
placing scientists in charge of overseeing forensic science research
rather than placing the office within the Department of Justice.

UHLC UNVEILS NEW CLINICAL OFFICE SUITE
WITH RIBBON-CUTTING
The University of Houston Law Center celebrated its new and expanded
clinical office space with a ribbon-cutting celebration.
The complete overhaul includes five interview rooms, two of which
have telephone and video capabilities to facilitate mediations and other
meetings outside of the Houston area and abroad; new offices for the
program’s nine faculty members as well as staff; and a new reception
area to give clients and students the feel of a real law office.
UH Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Paula
Myrick Short and Law Center Dean Leonard M. Baynes attended the
ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“Clinical legal education is so important because students want to be
practice-ready,” Baynes said. “It’s very important for us to have a space
that represents the quality of our students and faculty. It also provides Provost Paula M. Short (Left), Dean Leonard M. Baynes, and
the clinic’s clients a space that’s like any other law office, where they Clinic Director Janet Heppard at clinic ribbon cutting ceremony

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