Three licensed attorneys, all CMU instructors, have agreed to participate in the clinic which will offer its services to students on a by-appointment basis.

Hope May, associate professor of philosophy and religion, will be one of the attorneys volunteering their time for the clinic. May is a full-time professor who still practices as an attorney, but she limits herself to taking on one case at a time to focus on her work at the university, she said.

Finance and law assistant professors Matt Coffey and Gerald White also agreed to volunteer their time at the clinic. Mouzourakis said she has talked to the three for some time, and they formally agreed to participate during a meeting Feb. 15.

May, the director of CMU’s Center for Professional and Personal Ethics, is also building the legal clinic’s website, which is up but unfinished at http://legalclinic.cmich.edu.

“I’m doing the website as part of the Ethics Center … so we’re contributing that and some other resources down the road,” May said.

When finished, the website will include an application students can file to set up an appointment with one of the clinic’s attorneys, as well as documents and legal resources for students to use. Already up on the site is information about small claims courts, tenant-landlord agreements and a copy of Mount Pleasant’s nuisance party law.

The clinic will be primarily run out of Mouzourakis’ office in the Student Organization Center in the basement of the Bovee University Center.

“This has been Brittany’s project from the beginning,” said Dave Breed, SGA vice president and Muskegon senior.

Mouzourakis said the completed application will include an option for students to specify whether they would rather see a male or female attorney to take matters such as criminal sexual conduct into consideration.

At last week’s meeting, it was decided that the attorneys could, at their prerogative, choose to represent students who came to the clinic for advice, Mouzourakis said. She said the students will often only know one lawyer, and that is the one advising them.

“One other thing we discussed (was) whether the attorneys could take on students as a client, and we decided that was fine, but that would be done separately from the clinic, as an outside contract,” Mouzourakis said.

One of the attorneys will be available every week for two hours a week, broken up into four half-hour appointments. The schedule for the clinic will change week-to-week to accommodate the attorneys.

May said she benefitted from advice she received at Michigan State University’s pro bono legal clinic while a student there, and wants to similarly “enable students with empowering knowledge.”

“Typically, when somebody makes an appointment to talk to an attorney, they are usually in a state of emotional distress and in need of guidance,” May said. “I know that was true in my case. Ultimately the goal for me, always, is empowering students.”

Coffey has taught at CMU for 15 years, and practices primarily as a defense attorney in civil business cases, he said.

"My first reaction (when asked to participate in the clinic) was 'I can't believe we don't have one already,'" Coffey said. "In a university this big ... I'm surprised we don't have this already."

White is recently retired, but still occasionally takes cases, Mouzourakis said.

William Shirley, a finance and law assistant professor, has also agreed to participate with the clinic, but on a more limited basis. Shirley is a practicing attorney and public defender in Mount Pleasant.

White and Shirley could not be reached for comment in time for publication.

Mouzourakis said another faculty member has expressed interest in volunteering with the clinic, but has not yet formally agreed to do so.