Social Work Advocacy Program

What We Do

The Bluhm Legal Clinic’s dual mission is to provide holistic legal services and to train student attorneys to identify and address not only clients’ legal issues, but also their broader needs. For this reason, social work services have been a vital part of the Bluhm Legal Clinic’s program for more than 25 years. Over the years, we realized that our clients’ social work needs had become both more complex and more intertwined with their legal needs, and an expanded clinic social work program became essential. At the end of 2022, the Social Work Advocacy Program (SWAP) was established under the leadership of Marjorie B. Moss to expand the Clinic’s holistic representation model and continue as a leader in the field. SWAP consolidated the Clinic’s multiple social work services under one umbrella to enhance social work support for the Clinic’s clients, faculty, and students. SWAP is unique among peer institutions, as the Bluhm Legal Clinic is one of the few clinics in the nation with a robust social work program housed internally. The creation of SWAP allowed clinic faculty to approach client representation holistically and teach law students the skills necessary for the multidisciplinary practice of law.

Clinic clients often face a multitude of societal, emotional, and economic concerns that go beyond their legal issues. SWAP collaborates with legal teams to ensure that clients’ broader and most basic needs are met. This can include assistance with education, employment, housing, physical health, and mental health. Holistic advocacy of this nature is imperative to clients’ success, both legally and in their day-to-day lives.

SWAP clients range from young teenagers to older adults, from wrongfully convicted men and women to individuals seeking asylum in the United States. SWAP’s clients have had their lives significantly affected by the criminal, juvenile, or immigration legal systems. SWAP helps clients move forward and establish successful lives with confidence, stability, and hope.

SWAP provides critical legal advocacy support by collaborating with students and faculty to draft court documents such as social histories, mitigation reports, and comprehensive re-entry plans for clients returning from detention or prison. The program also fosters strong relationships with key entities essential to clients’ success, including community-based agencies, schools, probation departments, and correctional institutions. In addition, SWAP works with clinic faculty to help law students develop essential skills for ethical and effective advocacy, including client interviewing, counseling, addressing difficult topics, preparing expert testimony, identifying non-legal issues, and reviewing social science literature to better understand and contextualize clients’ behaviors for both students and the courts.

SWAP’s ability to take on these tasks allows legal teams to focus on the issues at hand while also ensuring clients’ broader needs are addressed.

Learn more about who we are, opportunities for law and social work students, client experiences, and how to support our work.