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By Jess Brown
For over 10 years, Tulane's environmental law clinic has represented poor and minority neighborhoods in environmental justice actions. Tulane law students, attempting to fight the disproportionate percentage of environmentally degrading activities in these neighborhoods, have represented poor and minority people in dozens of legal actions. For example, the clinic recently prevailed on a Clean Air Act permitting matter with environmental racism implications, thereby preventing a large chemical company, Shintech, from building a chemical plant in the mostly black neighborhood of Convent, Louisiana.
But the politics of the state have come back and bitten the law students. As a result of strong industry lobbying and influence from Louisiana's governor, the Louisiana Supreme Court has redefined who the students may represent. A new court rule prevents law clinics from representing individuals whose annual salary is more than $10,000, and communities if more than half of their members earn more than $10,000. The rule also prohibits law clinics from representing local chapters of national organizations such as the Sierra Club. This rule severely limits the students' participation in actions such as the Shintech suit.
Advocates of the new rule claim that the law schools of Louisiana (Tulane, Loyola and Southern) had been providing free aid to people who could already afford adequate legal help. The true driving force behind the rule, however, has been desire by industry and business proponents to protect their interests. Louisiana's governor actively campaigned for adoption of the rule, expressing concern that the law schools were supporting anti-business claims, thus harming the state's economy. The governor has called Tulane clinic students "a bunch of outlaws," and has threatened to cut state tax breaks for the university. In addition, one Louisiana Supreme Court justice apparently received campaign contributions from a lobbying group that supported the new rule.
The struggle continues. Tulane and other advocates of equal access to justice have asked the court to reconsider the new rule. As a result of the rule, the Tulane law clinic has already been forced to turn down cases it would have taken in the past. Skeptics of the new rule assert that, of the 170 clients represented by the Tulane law clinic over the past 10 years, not a single one would have qualified for legal help under the new rule.
The impacts of this decision are not limited to Louisiana. Legal clinics nationwide could be under attack if other states decided to follow Louisiana's lead. Currently, most states give law school clinics the discretion to decide who to represent on a case by case basis. However, considering the strong persuasive powers held by business and industry representatives across the nation, other states may choose to adopt limiting rules similar to Louisiana's.
Louisiana's new rule severely cuts many people's access to justice based on a flat income limit. Unfortunately, many people who make more than the limit cannot afford a lawyer. Constraining clinics' ability to accept clients not only limits low-income and minority peoples' access to the courts, it also diminishes the value of clinical work for students interested in pursuing public interest work after graduation.