A pro bono program allowing Texas Law students to serve as advisors to parties involved in Title IX proceedings is set to accept more appointments and more types of cases in 2022-23.

“I realized that there was a huge gap in services and a lot of college students who were going through Title IX proceedings were saying that the proceedings were really challenging (to understand),” said third-year law student Olivia Horton, who helped establish the program. “But I thought, … ‘Why don’t the main campuses partner with law schools to be able to offer their students the free legal services that they’re asking for?’”

The Richard and Ginni Mithoff Pro Bono Program and the University’s Title IX office established the advising initiative in the 2021-22 school year. Ten student volunteers appointed by the Title IX office advised six undergraduate students in cases involving sexual assault, interpersonal violence and stalking, said Mithoff Program director Andrea Marsh. They assisted four complaining parties and two responding parties on separate cases, according to the press release.

The program offers every student undergoing a Title IX case an advisor, which they are entitled to by law.

“This year, we have 40 students working on the project. We anticipate that we will have the capacity to take up to 20 cases,“ Marsh said. “This year, we’re taking Track C cases, which are different offenses. We are taking cases that involve employees, … and we also have cases involving graduate students.”

The success of the pilot program prepared the program to expand, Marsh said.

“We already had our training materials ready to go. We have identified some attorneys in the community who were willing to work with us on these cases and help supervise our students,” Marsh said. “We just had a better feel for the amount of work involved in the process.”

The Mithoff Program created the initiative to meet the need for advisors aiding students undergoing Title IX proceedings, Horton said. 

Law student volunteers provide the needed legal services to streamline the process for parties involved in Title IX proceedings, said Justin Atkinson, who served as an advisor for two students in the pilot program in his first year of law school. The volunteers talk through the facts of the case and ideal outcomes with the parties and then help them build a presentable case.

“The benefit of our program is that when the University appoints us as an advisor, we can get that legal strategy,” Atkinson said. “We can talk with the attorneys we work with to build a case theory, and we can help craft more of a strategic approach. It’s treated like we would any kind of legal proceeding.”

The program offers an advocate to students to support them through the long legal proceedings involved in Title IX cases, Horton said.

”Students often feel very lonely while they’re going through this process and very confused,” Horton said. “I think it’s really just being their advocate from start to finish, whether it’s helping them express what their goals are, or what they need … or whether it’s helping them with more technical legal issues. We do both.”