Certificate Program

What is Public Interest Law?
Public interest law serves individuals, groups and social interests that are traditionally underserved by our law and government. It seeks to empower subordinated persons and communities, redress the imbalance of power between individuals and government, and promote social justice. It encompasses working to end discrimination and inequality based on class, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability; lawyering on behalf of significant issues, such as the environment, health care, consumer protection, free speech and voting rights; and representing people who cannot afford or do not have access to adequate legal representation, including children, the poor, criminal defendants and institutionalized individuals.

What is Public Interest Law at DePaul?
The public interest profile of DePaul has grown significantly over the past 20 years culminating with accelerated growth in the past three years. The hallmark of public interest at DePaul has always been that students are equal participants with faculty in developing the programs. The Public Interest Law Committee presides over the Center and it includes more students than faculty, allowing students the opportunity to not only participate, but also to innovate. Joint student and faculty efforts led to the creation of the Public Interest Law Program, the precursor to the Center; an increase in institution-wide support for public interest endeavors; and the creation of Chicago's first Public Interest Law Certificate program, designed to acknowledge those students with a demonstrated interest in the field by providing expanded public interest law course offerings. The Community Service Initiative, a volunteer program, and the Journal for Social Justice were actually created under student initiative and direction, and received strong support from the dean, faculty and students. The program has expanded beyond expectations and was institutionalized in the fall of 2006 as the Center for Public Interest Law. The Center manages all aspects of the public interest law program, including full-tuition scholarships as part of the Public Interest Honors Scholars program; three public interest sections, including an evening section, of the first-year Legal Analysis, Research & Communications (LARC) course; the Community Service Initiative, a successful student volunteer program; the Journal for Social Justice; a speakers and mentors program, a Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP); and greatly expanded contacts with the public interest community.

Certificate Program
To earn a Certificate in Public Interest Law, a student must complete the 86 semester hours required for the Juris Doctor (JD) degree and satisfy all JD requirements. Within the elective course work required for the JD, a student must complete 15 credit hours from the approved list of public interest law courses with a minimum GPA of 3.00 in those courses. If a student takes more than the five courses required for the certificate, all of the public interest law courses factor into the final GPA. Within the 15 hours, two core course, one writing component and one experiential component are required. All courses are worth three credit hours each unless otherwise indicated. Certificate courses may not be audited.