University of Richmond Law Students Win Case Before Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals
April 28, 2005
Most third year law students don’t get an opportunity to argue a case before a U.S. Court of Appeals. In fact, many attorneys never experience it either.
But two Richmond Law students got to do just that. And Cassie R. Craze and Natasha Umbertis not only got to argue a case; they won it.
The case was argued last fall and decided this spring. Craze and Umbertis were taking the mantle handed down to them from previous third-year students working in the Disability Law Clinic headed Adrienne E. Volenik, clinical professor of law at Richmond. The clinic had agreed to represent a child with autism and his parents in a suit against the School Board of Henrico County, Va.
The family claimed that the boy’s school did not give him an appropriate individual educational program, as was his right under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
The school had prepared an individualized education plan, which the parents deemed inadequate, and they left the boy, called Z.P., in a private school.
Autistic children have special needs in education because they have a greatly reduced ability to imitate actions and sounds and because they lack normal joint attention skills, the ability to share the experience of looking at an object or activity, said Volenik. They also are easily distracted from learning when “stimming,” engaging in self-stimulatory behavior, such as flapping their hands, rocking back in forth or repeating a sound or a word. The students argued that because Z.P. is severely autistic, he needed many more hours of one-on-one time with teachers than the school board was offering.
“Preparing for the argument was one of the most challenging things I have ever done, since I did not have any background in special education law or in the Z.P. case prior to the time that we started work on the 4th Circuit argument," Craze said.
Both Umbertis and Craze said they were terrified, perhaps with good reason. Neither had had any experience. It was Umbertis's "first-ever court appearance, either as a law student or in any manner."
Craze said she had "never even participated in moot court or any of the other voluntary opportunities the law school provides to practice oral argument."
To make matters worse, they had only one month, from the beginning of school in late August to the Sept. 29 court date. "The case already had a huge body of information," Umbertis said, "thousands of pages."
"Fortunately, the students who had come before us in prior semesters had done a great job with the case, and we had some very knowledgeable people mooting us to help us prepare," Umbertis said.
The case had gone before a hearing officer, who held for Z.P, then before the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which reversed the decision in favor of the county. The 4th Circuit reversed in favor of Z.P. and remanded the case to the district court.
Umbertis and Craze went through numerous moot court sessions, the final one before a star-studded panel of Dean Rodney A. Smolla, Judge Robert Bork and Senior Justice Harry L. Carrico. Not only that, said Umbertis, "the whole law school and law community were invited. The Moot Court Room was packed."
"The moot court asked pointed questions," Umbertis said, "and they really helped us fine tune our case.”
And maybe most important, Volenik said, the students figured the real case "would not be any more nerve wracking."
Umbertis said they spent 30-35 hours a week on top of their full class loads. She was juggling four classes and a part-time job too. But she "lived, ate and breathed that case."
"We had great team support," Umbertis said.
So did the students who came before Umbertis and Craze.
Michele Burke, one of the students who prepared the case presented before the hearing officer said: “It took over our semester. It was our lives. We interviewed parents, wrote the demands letter. The time we had was very short.”
“We read a lot and spoke to a speech therapist and occupational therapists, people who know autism.
“We were so lucky to have had the experience. We did everything. I didn’t appreciate it until I started working (as an associate at LeClair Ryan in Richmond). To fully understand (how to be a lawyer) I draw on that experience.”
Umbertis said her experience was irreplaceable. “The clinical programs (at Richmond) are just incredible. It’s terrifying to go from law school to practice without such hands-on experience.”