Danielle Server
Staff Writer
UW law students, Brent Rhodes and Jennifer Dean, under the Civil Legal Services clinic, made history in the courtroom, winning their case in jury trial before the court.
“My class of 2020 is the hundredth graduating class in the law school’s history,” said Rhodes. “My clinic is fifty years old and I’m the very first person in my clinic’s history to win a jury trial. It is also important for the law school as Jenn and I are the first students in the law school’s history to win a jury trial.”
It is rare that a clinic case would ever go to trial before a jury and even less likely given the infrequency of jury trials in general.
“Jury trials are the glamorous part of being a lawyer, so there is a lot of money to be made. They are really complex and hard with important rights and money involved,” said Rhodes.
Rhodes, in his third year of law school and student director of the Civil Legal Service clinic, took on as lead counsel with Dean as co-counsel. The UW law students were under the direction of College of Law Professor Danielle Cover as they spent hours preparing the case for the court.
The Civil Legal Services team took the court case in late 2019 in efforts to help the defendant, an incarcerated individual after the court requested their assistance in the trial. The judge, according to Rhodes, had asked for the clinic to help the individual because he had no money to pay for a lawyer.
“The law students did a great job,” said Judge Sharpe according to UW law blog. “They were extremely well-prepared for trial under the excellent supervision of Professor Cover. What impressed me most was the obvious compassion and dedication they had for their client. Those are things you can’t teach. The law school should be proud of these students and all of the professors who work hard with law students in their clinical programs. The University of Wyoming Law School is accepting and turning out the right kind of lawyers.”
For the law students, they would have a short amount of preparation time before appearing before the court. To prepare for the trial, the students worked on extensive research that included filing motions and pre trial conferences according to the UW law blog.
“It was tough to enter this case so late, and we had to work with demanding deadlines and had little access to our client as he is incarcerated,” said Dean to UW law blog. “We had a month and a half to get familiar with our case and client, prepare our case theory, learn how to do a jury trial and prepare what was needed to do so successfully. However, I am so grateful for the opportunity, the knowledge I have gained and for the graciousness of the court. I’d love to take on another challenge like this in the future.”
The court case was a two trial that worked to prevent the termination of parental rights for an incarcerated individual. The individual was trying to defend his constitutional right to be in contact with his child. The other parent involved was blocking the individual from reaching out to the child through letters and gifts.
The clinic defended that the individual had the right through both the Wyoming and National constitution that he may have his rights as a parent. In the end, the two UW law students won over the case, providing both history for the university’s law school and protecting the rights for a parent in need.
