Legal Clinics - The University of Tulsa
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Legal Clinics

The Clinical Education Program at the TU College of Law prepares students for the practice of law through a combination of real-world experience, intensive supervision and dynamic seminars.

Clinical Education Program

Housed in the Boesche Legal Clinic building, the TU Legal Clinical Program offers students opportunities to represent real clients with real legal problems under the close supervision of experienced attorneys. Our low faculty-to-student ratio in our clinical courses ensures that students have a rich learning experience.

The clinics we offer are the  Buck Colbert Franklin Legal Clinic, the Immigrant Rights Project, the Terry West Civil Legal Clinic and the Public Defender Clinic. In each of these clinics, students develop lawyering skills such as client interviewing and counseling, recognizing ethical issues and determining appropriate responses, oral and written advocacy, negotiating, and identifying nonlegal issues that interfere with legal representations. There is no limit to the number of clinics students can take. Students seeking to develop these skills often enroll in multiple clinics during their time in law school because the lawyering skills students develop are transferable to the practice of any type of law.

In addition to client work, students also participate in clinic seminars where they learn how to present cases, assist colleagues with legal strategy questions, moot their case advocacy proceedings, study different models of lawyering as well as the access to justice gap, the systems in which attorneys work, and how those factors impact their clients and their representation of their clients.

  • Buck Colbert Franklin Legal Clinic
  • Immigrant Rights Project
  • Tulsa Immigrant Resource Network (TIRN)
  • Terry West Civil Legal Clinic
  • Public Defender Clinic
    • Just days after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, B.C. Franklin returned to the decimated Greenwood neighborhood with his law partner and secretary. They reopened their practice in a tent in order to serve the community they called home. Today, TU Law's B.C. Franklin Legal Clinic serves north Tulsa and Greenwood residents. Students advance community development and social justice by representing individuals and small businesses in civil legal matters, both transactional and litigation-based.

      Buck Colbert Franklin Legal Clinic

    • The Immigrant Rights Project (IRP) is a one-semester, six-credit clinical education program in which law students represent non-citizens in immigration matters. Clients include persons seeking asylum in the United States as a result of persecution or fear of persecution in their home countries, as well as non-citizen victims of domestic violence and other crimes, unaccompanied non-citizen minors, or other non-citizens subject to removal and immigration detention.

      Immigrant Rights Project

    • Operating within and as a part of the TU College of Law Legal Clinic, the Tulsa Immigrant Resource Network (TIRN) continues the work of the Immigrant Rights Project by providing direct service to Tulsa’s noncitizen population. TIRN is separately funded through a generous grant from the George Kaiser Family Foundation.

      TIRN

    • The Terry West Civil Legal Clinic is supported by the Sarkeys Foundation. It addresses access to justice for marginalized communities in Tulsa, with a particular focus on the intersection of legal needs within these communities. While serving individual clients, students also engage more broadly with the justice system and structural access to justice barriers. The clinic explores different mechanisms of advocacy, including court observations, fact-finding and reporting, impact litigation, and legislative advocacy. Students may also create know your rights materials and presentations.

      Terry West Civil Legal Clinic

    • The Public Defender Clinic (PDC) is a public service, criminal defense-adjacent program for law students to get one-on-one advocacy experience while helping presently incarcerated individuals apply for sentence commutation, ultimately advocating for them at the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board to reduce Oklahoma’s incarceration rate directly and by supporting legislation, with an emphasis on Oklahoma’s female incarceration crisis.

      Public Defender Clinic

    Benefactors

    The Clinical Education Program at The University of Tulsa College of Law is grateful for the generous financial support of the following benefactors:

    • George Kaiser Family Foundation
    • Sanford & Irene Burnstein Family Foundation<
    • Schusterman Family Foundation
    • Oklahoma Bar Foundation
    • Mervin Bovaird Foundation
    • The Estate of Jay C. Byers (JD ’61)
    • Pearl M. and Julia J. Harmon Foundation
    • Sarkeys Foundation
    • Pierce Couch Hendrickson Baysinger & Green
    • TU College of Law Alumni Board of Directors 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Coalition
    • Tulsa County Bar Association
    • Tulsa County Bar Foundation

    These gifts have made it possible for TU Law to provide critical legal services to people in the Tulsa community.

    Contact the TU Legal Clinic

    The University of Tulsa College of Law
    918-631-5799 or 1-800-438-5909
    legalclinic@utulsa.edu

    Hours
    Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

    Our Staff

    Miriam H. Marton

    Associate Dean of Experiential Learning & Director of Clinical Education Program

    Robin Sherman

    Clinical Instructor & Staff Attorney for the Buck Colbert Franklin Legal Clinic

    Ambre Weston

    Director of Externships

    Cynthia Yaschine

    Coordinator, Legal Clinic

    Glen Blake

    Deputy Public Defender and Director of the Public Defender’s Clinic

    Kaitlyn Mortazavi

    Schusterman Staff Attorney

    Elijah Johnson

    Director of Tulsa Immigrant Resource Network

    John Paul Bloese

    TIRN Fellow

    Matt Flynn

    TIRN Fellow

    Shirley Castro

    Department Assistant

    Miriam H. Marton

    Associate Dean of Experiential Learning & Director of Clinical Education Program

    Miriam H. Marton

    Associate Dean of Experiential Learning
    Director, Clinical Education Program
    ClinicalProfessor of Law
    mimi-marton@utulsa.edu

    Marton is the associate dean of experiential learning and director of TU Law’s Clinical Education Program. Marton joined the TU Law faculty in July 2014. Her expertise and scholarly work are at the intersection of the law and mental health of all parties in immigration proceedings — clients, attorneys or law students, adjudicators and government attorneys — and the impact that intersection can have on legal proceedings. Marton currently teaches at the Buck Colbert Franklin Legal Clinic and the Immigrant Rights Project. In Marton’s clinics, students develop lawyering skills in addition to understanding the systems in which lawyers work and the impact of those systems on the marginalized populations with which our clinical education program works.

    Robin Sherman

    Clinical Instructor & Staff Attorney for the Buck Colbert Franklin Legal Clinic

    Robin Sherman
    Clinical Instructor/Staff Attorney for the Buck Colbert Franklin Legal Clinic
    robin-sherman@utulsa.edu

    Sherman is the clinical instructor and staff attorney of the Buck Colbert Franklin Legal Clinic where she supervises law students in the direct representation of individuals in north Tulsa. She graduated from The University of Tulsa College of Law in 2017 and began working as a legal fellow for the Tulsa Immigrant Resource Network. She would go on to direct that program. During her time in those positions, she provided direct representation to clients, conducted legal consultations with asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, and developed systems for providing know-your-rights presentations to detained immigrants at the Tulsa County Jail. Now, she is dedicated to expanding legal services in north Tulsa while ensuring clinical law students have an immersive experience practicing law prior to graduation.

    Ambre Weston

    Director of Externships

    Ambre Weston
    Director of Externships
    ambre-weston@utulsa.edu

    Weston graduated from TU Law in December 2020 and is licensed to practice law in Oklahoma. She joined the college in April 2021 as the legal fellow for the Tulsa Immigrant Rights Network. She practiced immigration law, focusing on asylum seekers and crime victims. In August 2022, she moved into the position of Schusterman staff attorney where her practice included family law issues related to immigrants’ needs. In March 2023, Weston became director of externships wherein she is responsible for the development, administration, and management of the law school’s externship program. The externship program allows students to gain academic credit for in-the-field, practical experience in the practice of law.

    Cynthia Yaschine

    Coordinator, Legal Clinic

    Cynthia Yaschine
    Coordinator, Legal Clinic
    cy872@utulsa.edu

    Cynthia Yaschine grew up in Mexico City and studied biology at UNAM. Before joining the legal clinic, Yaschine worked for over 10 years in biomedical research laboratories in Mexico, Germany and California. Yaschine has volunteered to teach adults to read and write in rural communities in Mexico and teach science to bilingual students in San Francisco and Tulsa. She first joined TU Law’s Legal Clinic as a Spanish-English interpreter and in 2012 joined the clinic staff on a full-time basis. Yaschine has interpreted for TU Law students and attorneys at detention centers and jails and has also traveled to the border to assist with clinic work.

    Glen Blake

    Deputy Public Defender and Director of the Public Defender’s Clinic

    Glen Blake 
    Deputy Public Defender and Director of the Public Defender’s Clinic

    Blake is the deputy public defender at the Tulsa County Public Defender’s Office and focuses the majority of his time on creating systemic changes to improve the criminal justice system in Tulsa County and statewide. Glen is a founder and current advisory board member of Project Commutation, which began in 2018.  In this role, he has worked with hundreds of incarcerated individuals in pursuing commutations of unjust and excessive prison sentences, as well as paroles. He is also an adjunct professor at The University of Tulsa College of Law, where he directs the Public Defender Clinic. Glen is a graduate of TU and TU Law.

    Kaitlyn Mortazavi

    Schusterman Staff Attorney

    Kaitlyn Mortazavi 
    Schusterman Staff Attorney

    Mortazavi is the Schusterman staff attorney at the TU Legal Clinic. As a student, she completed two semesters at the TU Legal Clinic, where she developed a passion for assisting the underserved communities in Tulsa with their legal needs. After graduating from The University of Tulsa College of Law with the highest honors and passing the Oklahoma Bar Exam in September 2021, she joined the clinic’s legal team as the Tulsa Immigrant Resource Network (TIRN) legal fellow. During that time, she worked on family law cases for immigrant families with children under age 8. In 2023, Mortazavi accepted the position of Schusterman staff attorney and now focuses on assisting immigrant families.

    Elijah Johnson

    Director of Tulsa Immigrant Resource Network

    Elijah Johnson 
    Director of Tulsa Immigrant Resource Network

    Johnson is the director of the Tulsa Immigrant Resource Network (TIRN). He grew up doing manual labor in the heat and cold, depressed by the wages but blessed by the richness of perspective and hardworking skill of his immigrant companions in the car wash, the packing plant, and the orchard. Exposure to immigrant stories of struggle, sacrifice, and striving under terrible pressure cracked his heart. From the fissure grew his interest in immigration law.
    Johnson, his partner, and their children have been setting down roots in Tulsa since 2017. He has the privilege of directing TIRN, which creates greater access to legal and nonlegal processes and benefits for noncitizens, through direct legal representation and community outreach, education, and organizing.

    John Paul Bloese

    TIRN Fellow

    John Paul Bloese
    TIRN Fellow

    Bloese currently serves as a TIRN fellow. A Tulsa native, he is a first-generation American son of a Cuban refugee. He completed his undergraduate education at the University of Oklahoma where he majored in multidisciplinary studies with an emphasis on international area studies and international enterprise studies. Following graduation from OU, Bloese served as a social worker at the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS), where he forged a passion for serving the most vulnerable in our community. After six years at OKDHS, he spent a short period in the private sector, working for two locally-owned small businesses. In 2019, Bloese decided to pursue his long-delayed goal of attending law school. He felt a calling to help those like his family who had suffered human rights violations and experienced the struggle of immigrating to a foreign land. Bloese graduated with honors from TU Law in May 2022 and began working as a TIRN fellow, serving Tulsa’s immigrant community.

    Matt Flynn

    TIRN Fellow

    Matt Flynn
    TIRN Fellow

    Flynn is the Project 850 legal fellow — a position in which he is coordinating with refugee resettlement agencies and working with legal clinic colleagues, volunteers, and law students to provide immigration assistance to the 850+ Afghan refugees making Tulsa their new home. A 2019 graduate of TU Law, Flynn was a founding board member of TU’s immigration law society, studied international law in Ireland for a year, and on several occasions traveled with the TU Legal Clinic to assist asylum seekers in detention facilities and at the U.S.-Mexico border. After law school and before the Project 850 fellowship, Flynn gained experience in employment civil rights law and assisted with multiple police misconduct cases under the mentorship of some of the San Francisco Bay Area’s leading civil rights attorneys.

    Shirley Castro

    Department Assistant

    Shirley Castro 
    Department Assistant

    Castro is a certified Spanish interpreter and translator with more than 30 years of experience in community service. She previously served in public health where she gained experience working with refugees from Latin America, Burma, and Afghanistan. She currently works as the TU Legal Clinic’s office assistant and interpreter.