The students are involved in Penn Law’s Supreme Court Clinic. The case was regarding immigration law.
For the last three years, law students have been given the opportunity to be a part of the Supreme Court Clinic. The program offers students hands-on experience with Supreme Court cases. As well, students are required to take a seminar taught by Law professor Amy Wax and lecturer James Feldman to learn the interworkings of the Supreme Court; the seminar lasts for one semester.
Professor Bibas launched the clinic after speaking with his old Yale Law School classmate, Stephen Kinnaird. Students’ major responsibilities when part of the clinic include working on first drafts of written arguments, researching court precedents and communicating with clients. The cases in which the students are involved include criminal, immigration and employment matters. The clinic provides legal services for free, not only as a public service, but to fulfill its educational purpose.
Vartelas v. Holder was the case Bibas argued in the Court. Preparations had been made regarding the case since last October via Penn Law. Bibas was defending Panagis Vartelas, a Greek businessman who’d been the recipient of a green card some twenty years ago, in 1989. In 1994, Vartelas had pled guilty in a counterfeiting case. At that time, the crime was not grounds for deportation, given that he left the United States and then attempted to re-enter.
However, because of a new immigration law that Congress had passed in 1996, Vartelas found himself in deportation proceedings in 2003 at the airport.
Third-year Penn Law student Ellen Mossman worked on the case.
Professor Bibas, in the role of director of Penn’s Supreme Court Clinic, has the opportunity to litigate a broad variety of criminal and civil Supreme Court cases. In 2010, he and his co-counsel won a landmark victory in Padilla v. Kentucky. The case dealt with the rights of noncitizen defendants to accurate information about deportation before they plead guilty. In addition, Bibas’ academic work contributed greatly in the Supreme Court’s landmark case of Blakely v. Washington.
The University of Pennsylvania Law School is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is a member of the Ivy League, and it is among the oldest and most selective law schools in the United States. Currently ranked 7th overall by U.S. News & World Report, the law school has created a cross-disciplinary program that is considered elite among leading law schools.
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