2023 CLEA Student Awards for Clinics and Externships: Catholic’s Mary Maloney

The Clinical Legal Education Association invited law schools to nominate students as their Outstanding Clinic Student or Team and Outstanding Externship student. This series includes submissions from law schools celebrating their outstanding students. 

Mary Maloney, The Catholic University of America: 

Mary was a student in the Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Clinic. Her dedication to her clients was unwavering. She was patient and did whatever she could to make the interviewing process easier including speaking to clients in flawless Spanish and meeting with them in the evenings, on weekends, or at their apartments. Mary excelled in her ability to integrate the skills she learned in class and implement them in her interactions with clients. We had a class on trauma informed practice in which students learned techniques for helping clients relay traumatizing events during interviews. The very next day Mary had an interview with a client who had had great difficulty completing her asylum declaration because she would become so upset when discussing what she had experienced in her home country. Mary masterfully implemented the skills she had learned in class, using active listening and grounding techniques to allow her client to fill in missing pieces of her story. Mary further employed her talents as an empathetic and effective advocate in our Low Income Tax Clinic.