Posted by 
By: Nathaniel James Lent ’24
This summer, I had the privilege to work as a Student Attorney for the Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinic at UB Law (CJAC). CJAC offers legal services to incarcerated individuals who are either seeking assistance in obtaining parole or resentencing under the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act CPL § 440.47(1) (DVSJA). My work with CJAC continues to be the most valuable learning experience of my legal education. I am thankful to Clarence J. Sundram for the opportunity to continue the clinic’s good work through the University at Buffalo School of Law Summer Public Interest Funding & Fellowship Program. The financial support of dedicated alumni is both necessary to help students like me, and extremely heartening when I consider what I could support in the future.
Having worked alongside CJAC in the Spring of 2023, I became familiar with the day-to-day operations of the clinic in a more academic environment, where a partner and I shared a pair of clients. Coming on for the summer, I was assigned two additional clients of my own, with brand new challenges and deadlines to meet. During the spring semester prior, my work focused primarily on appealing parole decisions, which generally entailed reviewing the clients’ last parole denial, analyzing the parole board’s decision for appealable issues, and submitting our brief to the appellate division, all while making regular contact with clients at their facilities to further refine our work to their needs. A denial of parole can only be overturned if the boards’ decision is found to be “arbitrary and capricious,” a standard with many vague facets. As I write this, both briefs submitted on behalf of the spring clients are still waiting on a decision, but we all hope for a positive outcome. That outcome being a “de novo” hearing, where we will be able to quickly prepare the clients for a new parole hearing a month from the appellate divisions’ decision.
For the summer, in addition to keeping in touch with the clients I met in the spring, I was assigned two new cases with two new postures. My first case involved the DVSJA, in which the case was in a more information-gathering stage, reaching out to witnesses and endeavoring to get affidavits signed in order to build a case. This required a less academic focus, and a more proactive, client focused approach. Being able to professionally reach out to interested parties and encourage them not just to discuss, but to sign their names to extremely sensitive testimony required the kind of professional candor I had been taught to use in client interactions. The staff attorneys and others at the clinic were very helpful in honing my ability to interact with clients in this way. This was essential, as a DVSJA resentencing appeal requires at least one piece of corroborating evidence. In cases where a vast amount of time has passed and records have either been destroyed or lost, acquiring witness testimony was also pretty much the only way to build a case.
While it was not one of my direct assignments, I was brought in to moot, and eventually witness the end product of what a DVSJA resentencing appeal was, at a seven-hour long hearing on the matter. It was remarkable to witness what was not just a pioneering event in the history of the DVSJA as relatively new law, but also a harrowing experience for our client. In a short time, I had a crash course on the kind of fundamentals I needed to build for my own case which would be needed if it were ever to make it to a hearing. My lead attorneys made a spirited and well-reasoned petition to the court, while patiently answering any questions I had about the process. While as of writing we are still waiting on a decision, I was able to take away a valuable courtroom experience that I could easily turn around for my own work.
My second assignment involved preparing a client for their upcoming parole hearing. This involved reviewing the transcripts of their prior parole hearings, assessing their performance, and coming up with a strategy to improve how they present themselves to their next board. It can sometimes seem as though parole boards are looking for even the slightest slip of the tongue, or the most minute pause in answering a difficult question about a client’s past. Without coaching the client on their answers, we can mock a parole board hearing, and advise them on how they can improve their delivery. This was a very client interaction heavy assignment, which was essential for preparing the client for their next biggest challenge. Assessing an incarcerated individual’s performance in a parole board hearing required both an intuition as to whether an answer was “good,” and experience looking at past transcripts and other materials to determine how things could have been different.
A few tertiary assignments I received included indexing large and complex cases of some age, as well as assessing the cases of those who inquired about the clinic’s services. These inquiries required less conventional research methods, along with producing an advisory memorandum for the director of the clinic. It was satisfying to be the first person to take a good look at a case, and see the viability in it, drawing on the experience I had already gained.
All in all, this summer allowed me to continue my work with incarcerated individuals and hone my passion for the issue at large. It is these experiences where I work alongside clients that I feel the most inspired to follow into the realm of criminal defense and appeals in my professional career. I would like to thank the generous donation from the 2023 Clarence J. Sundram ’72 Fellowship, which was able to make this experience possible for me. I really enjoy these practical experiences from the clinics, and I am glad that the legal community also sees their value.
Name: Nathaniel James Lent ’24
Fellowship: 2023 Clarence J. Sundram ’72 Fellowship
Placement: Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinic
Location: Amherst, NY
One important lesson I have learned from this fellowship: “Social justice is a difficult concept to conceptualize practically, but through one little victory at a time for the clinic’s clients, we can start to see some progress.”
UB School of Law Responds 