2023 CLEA Student Awards for Clinics and Externships: Denver’s Annika Winans and Sharon Malhotra

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.

The Denver Law Student Law Office is proud to nominate Annika Winans and Sharon Malhotra from our 2022-23 Immigration Law and Policy Clinic for the Outstanding Student Team Award. Anni and Sharon took on the case of a detained immigrant with a vision disability who many seasoned attorneys would have declined to touch and won multiple forms of relief for him at the Aurora Immigration Court, allowing him to be free in the US and with his family for the first time in more than 20 years. The decision from the immigration judge in this case is one of the first in the country to uphold claims of persecution and torture in President Nayib Bukele’s State of Emergency in El Salvador. Anni and Sharon creatively briefed an area of law that is rapidly evolving, effectively took testimony from the client and an expert, and nimbly responded to opposing counsel’s arguments in opposition. During the course of representation, they exhibited outstanding client centeredness, advanced intersectional disability and immigration arguments, and demonstrated a fearless commitment to speaking truth to power on behalf of someone whose voice had been effectively silenced for decades. Since the client’s release, they have worked hard to support his transition back to his family and community. Their work reflects the goals and principles of experiential learning and the difference it can make in people’s lives.