Centers & Clinics
American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ)
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) is one of our nation’s most influential public interest law firms. Headed by Chief Counsel Dr. Jay Sekulow the ACLJ operates on the Regent campus, providing law students with unparalleled opportunities to participate in current religious and civil liberties cases. Law students also have the opportunity to enroll in elective courses taught by Dr. Sekulow, and other ACLJ attorneys also teach as part of the constitutional law course curriculum.
The ACLJ has an office on the fourth floor of our law school. They hire our students to work for pay or you can earn credit through our externship program.
Center for Global Justice®
The Center for Global Justice® was founded in 2010 due to the increasing number of Regent Law students believing God had called them to a legal career in human rights. The center equips Christian advocates to promote the rule of law and seek justice for the world’s downtrodden—the poor, the oppressed, and the enslaved—and serves and supports those already engaged in such advocacy. The center’s internship grant program helps students secure summer internships in the human rights field all over the world. The center also sponsors human rights courses and special events, and its student staff completes legal projects for human rights organizations.
Students work on legal projects for human rights organizations like ADF International, International Justice Mission, Shared Hope, the Uganda Attorney General, Advocates International, etc. Students have drafted briefs to the European Court of Human Rights, written legal memos to end land grabbing in Uganda, proposed legislation to combat child sacrifice, and helped do research to pass Virginia’s first ever sex trafficking bill.
Center for Professional Formation
The Center for Professional Formation is committed to developing students’ professional identities. The center’s goal is to produce lawyers who have an understanding of the nature and purpose of the legal profession and are committed to the ethical practice of law. To that end, the center has developed the Mentor Program to facilitate the ethical Christian character formation of Regent Law students. Our mentors represent a variety of practice and geographical legal communities around the country, but each seeks to support and encourage the center’s mission of fostering our students’ professional identity formation.
Child Advocacy Clinic
In this clinic, students work with Professor Kathleen McKee on legal matters relating to children. For example, one semester they drafted a brief on an important case before the VA Supreme Court relating to the rights of a father over frozen embryos.
Civil Litigation Clinic
We have a clinic in downtown Norfolk (just opening!) that is right across from the Courthouse. Students represent real clients using their third-year practice certificate under the supervision of one of our professors.
National Right to Work Practicum
This practicum provides students interested in employee rights in the context of compulsory unionism, public interest law, and litigation the opportunity to work with the litigation staff of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Sixty hours of research, writing, and litigation support are required per credit hour.
Third-Year Practice Certificate
Virginia allows students to earn their third-year practice certificate whereby third-year students can practice law under the supervision of an attorney. Students can earn credit and work at firms, prosecutors and public defenders’ offices, governmental agencies, etc. and represent real clients!
Robertson Center for Constitutional Law
The Robertson Center for Constitutional Law will leverage the expertise of faculty, students, and its global network of alumni and legal experts to promote first principles in constitutional law including freedom of speech, separation of powers, and religious freedom. The Center has filed briefs in cases before the federal circuit courts of appeals and the United States Supreme Court.
Leading the Robertson Center for Constitutional Law as honorary co-chairs are former U.S. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, J.D., and Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice Jay Sekulow, J.D., Ph.D. Dean Bradley Lingo serves as executive director and J. Alex Touchet serves as the Constitutional Law Fellow.
Success Story
“Regent Law professors challenged me not just to be the best I could academically, but also to be the best leader I could in the legal profession and in public service.“
— Timothy Downing, Class of 2010, Associate Attorney General of Oklahoma