As part of an ongoing pursuit to improve the health of every child, Cook Children’s Health Care System is joining forces with Texas A&M School of Law (TAMU Law) to create a new medical-legal partnership. The mission of this collaboration is to provide free legal services to patients and families with legal needs that directly affect their health and access to medical care.

Despite a recognized need, the majority of families at Cook Children’s are unable to access legal services. Social workers at the medical center are often contacted by patient families who have been unsuccessful in qualifying for public benefits, obtaining a guardianship for their incapacitated adult child or communicating with their landlord to remediate unsafe housing issues. These social, economic and environmental factors have a direct impact on a child’s health.

Students and faculty at the Texas A&M School of Law tackle real-world cases in the pursuits of justice.

For the past year, the Texas A&M Law Criminal Defense Clinic has represented a woman in her 60s, sentenced to life in prison in her 50s for a first-time drug offense.  Students, under the guidance of clinic director and professor Amber Baylor, successfully petitioned for compassionate release on her behalf. The court granted a reduction in sentence this May, and the client was released to her family in Dallas.

Texas A&M Law students collaboratively worked in support of the client's application for a reduction of her sentence, to allow her to return home to her children and grandchildren rather than die in prison. A few students visited and interviewed the client at the federal prison where she was incarcerated. The client's cause became urgent once coronavirus began to spread rapidly within US prisons. She had health conditions that made her vulnerable to the virus.

Students adjusted their strategy and motions to request immediate compassionate release. The federal district court judge granted release to the client.

Texas A&M School of Law is home to 10 legal clinics that provide students with the opportunity to apply their skills to work on behalf of actual clients. Clinical work at Texas A&M Law provides hands-on experiences in a variety of practice areas, including family law, veterans law, immigration law, tax disputes, intellectual property and others. Clinic clients include entrepreneurs, nonprofit organizations, government entities and individuals.  In recent months, the clinic programs have been growing exponentially in terms of case notoriety, student growth, grants and social media presence.

The Texas A&M Immigrant Rights Clinic filed a petition in federal court last Friday demanding that ICE immediately release eleven medically-vulnerable immigrants from the Prairieland Detention Center, where 45 detained individuals have tested positive for COVID-19. Professor Fatma Marouf, Adjunct Professor Sehla Ashai and students Teresa Reyes Flores, Marisela Gonzales, Mario Guerra, Maria Jose Rosales Lagos and Emily Malden, joined forces with RAICES and the civil rights firm Loevy & Loevy in bringing the case. 

Dominic Wallace ran out of options. The ex-soldier surrendered to the implacable obstacle of a massive bureaucracy. Severely injured with a head trauma just days before he could graduate from Army bootcamp, the young private was caught in the no-man’s land between the U.S. Army and the Texas National Guard, which had sent him to Army basic training. After ending up in hospitals, then processed out, Wallace found himself with no training or any of the other benefits of modern military service, and no veterans support for continuous treatment of his head injury as he wasn’t even classified as a vet. And no one would help.

Texas A&M University School of Law's Innocence Clinic welcomes Amanda Knox and Anna Vasquez Tuesday, October 8 at 12 noon. Both Knox and Vasquez were wrongfully convicted and exonerated after serving time behind bars and would like to share their stories with students, faculty, staff and community guests. Click here to RSVP.

Knox is an exoneree, journalist, public speaker and author of the New York Times best-selling memoir, Waiting to Be Heard (HarperCollins, April 2013). Between 2007 and 2015, she spent nearly four years in an Italian prison and eight years on trial for a murder she didn’t commit.

John D. Robinson, a 2019 graduate of Texas A&M University School of Law, has joined Cantey Hanger LLP as an associate in the Litigation Section.  He will handle health care and commercial litigation cases.

Texas A&M University School of Law clinic client, Carlos Gonzalez, is a Gulf War disabled veteran who, in 2017, sought legal assistance from the law school regarding his driver's license. Supervising attorney and faculty member, Karon Rowden, and students resolved the issue for him with a hearing in a county court.