University Park Services

We run a conflicts check on every intake. If we identify a conflict, we'll do our best to get referral information to the affected student. We typically send it by email so we don't waste the student's time by making that student come in to an appointment to get the referral list.

Sometimes we aren't able to spot a conflict until the initial meeting. If that happens, we'll provide referral information when the conflict is identified.

Unfortunately, no. We are subject to strict rules about attorney client privilege, and sometimes those rules prohibit us from explaining the reason for the conflict.

Yes, students are welcome to schedule an appointment after a conflict is identified if they have questions, or if they want to provide additional information they think would prove helpful in our analysis of the conflict determination. A meeting can be useful if there are follow up questions regarding the referral information provided.

Often a meeting is not helpful to a student after a conflict decision is made because:

1. The attorney is not permitted to provide legal advice -- student often ask for 'information' or 'help' with the matter. We can't disguise legal advice as something else just by changing what we call it. If the student needs an attorney to be able to get the questions answered, the answers are likely legal advice.
2. We won't debate or negotiate the conflict decision. It is critical that we all retain our law licenses to be able to continue to provide this service.

Students are entitled to use our services to get help for their personal legal issues; however, students do not have the right to decide whether we provide referrals, advice or representation in any given case. The Student Legal Services office can't exist unless the attorneys make that decision.

We only assist students with their personal legal issues. We don't help students with their friend's legal issue or their family member's legal issue. We don't assist students as business owners. The entrepreneurship ecosystem at the University provides free legal assistance and other services for students who are launching businesses.

Cases against the University or its employees, acting in their professional capacity

It is easy to understand that we can't sue the University. This proscription is more broad than that though. For example, we will only provide referral information in:

• A student's dispute against a professor
• A student's employment dispute against the University
• A criminal action where the student is alleged to have damaged University property

On the other hand, if the other party works for the University, but the action is unrelated to their professional role, we typically can help. So if a student has an issue with the landlord, and the landlord works for the University, Student Legal Services can usually still help that student because the issue is entirely with the landlord acting in a private capacity, not in the scope of his or her employment with the University.

Most cases against other students

With so many students living so close together -- much of the conflict that occurs here is between students. We've worked hard to try to develop resources for students in this situation to have access to a free or affordable consultation with a private attorney.

We have to be equally available to all students, and we can't pick which student to help based on who is 'right' and who is 'wrong' or who is the alleged perpetrator and who is the alleged victim. All students deserve the same right to representation, and often that means we can't help either student.

There is a narrow exception for situations where we would not be obligated to represent the other student, such as where the student is acting in their capacity as a for-profit business owner.

Common student-student conflict situations include:

• roommate conflict
• theft of another student's property
• fights between students
• car accidents where both drivers are students
• one student defaults on a joint and several lease where another student is also a tenant

Professional conflicts can occur even when it may not seem like there is any actual conflict between the students. Here are a couple of examples:

• Furnishing/underage charges. We often get two students who are close friends where one was charged with furnishing, and the other with underage possession. This presents a conflict for us, even though the friends both want us to help them both. To give complete advice, we'd have to advise one student of an option that could hurt the interests of the other student. Even if both students agree they don't want to take any action that would harm the other, our ethics rules don't allow us to take that friendship into account -- our zealous representation of one student could harm the interests of the other. We can only provide them with referral information.
• Drafting a sublease agreement. One student wants to sublease an apartment from another. Both students want us to help draft a sublease contract. The students may have the same goal, but when they are on opposite sides of a contract, their legal interests are different. We can only provide them with referral information.

Cases where another student is involved in an adversarial way

Conflicts of interest often extend to situations where another student is involved in an adverse capacity to another student, even it they are not directly involved in the charge, lawsuit, or conflict. The most common example of this is where a student receives a charge related to a fight. Often the fight was witnessed by other students. We couldn't represent the student who received the criminal charge because we could not cross-examine the students who were witnesses to the fight.