Ph.: 505-277-1073
Fax: 505-277-4367
Office: 2530
Dickason Professor
J.D. 1991, Columbia University School of Law
A.B. 1986, Stanford University
Member of the California, District of Columbia, and New York Bars
Carol Suzuki joined the UNM law faculty in 2003, bringing a strong background in clinical law.
After graduating from Columbia University School of Law, she joined the Legal Aid Society in New York City. As part of her workload in the civil division, she represented clients with HIV/AIDS who came into the office. After four years, she joined the HIV Law Project in New York City. As senior staff attorney, she represented women of color and their families. Recognizing the need for additional expertise to most effectively represent her clients, she often would collaborate with social workers to help resolve client problems. By the time she left in 1999, she was Deputy Director.
While at the HIV Law Project, Professor Suzuki taught an annual class on professional responsibility to third-year students at Columbia University School of Law. In 1999, she became a visiting professor at the David A. Clarke School of Law at the University of the District of Columbia, working in the HIV/AIDS Legal Clinic. She then moved to Yale Law School as a Robert M. Cover Clinical Teaching Fellow. Professor Suzuki worked mostly in the immigration clinic, and she also supervised student outreach in the HIV/AIDS community and worked with clinic students to improve prison conditions for incarcerated women.
At the UNM School of Law, her courses include the Community Lawyering Clinic, AIDS and the Law, Bioethics, Refugee Law, and Torts. She is the Faculty Advisor to the New Mexico Law Review.
Professor Suzuki co-authors the annual supplement to the family law chapter of Aspen Publisher's “AIDS and the Law.” She has served as Chair of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Clinical Legal Education. Professor Suzuki is a founding member of Voices of Women of Color Against HIV/AIDS.
This course will examine laws which impact the rights of people living with AIDS. How do we build a system that enables people living with HIV to live high-quality, productive lives? What laws can be created to help prevent the spread of HIV and increase access to care? We will look at the medical aspects of HIV, self-determination in regard to treatment decisions, access to treatment, participation in drug treatment trials and experimental treatments. We will discuss the effect of a parent's HIV status on the fundamental right to parent and laws created to enable a parent affected by HIV to plan for the children's future. We will explore the impact of HIV status in the areas of confidentiality, insurance, public accommodations, employment, housing, tort law, public benefit programs, immigration law, criminal liability and penalties. We will discuss the government's reaction and international legal efforts to respond to the AIDS epidemic.
This seminar will examine legal and ethical issues that arise in health care, medicine, and biological sciences. Probable topics include: human genetics; experiments on human subjects; the physician-patient relationship; informed consent; surrogate motherhood; health care rationing; palliative care; dying and death. Final examination. Students may opt to fulfill the Advanced Writing Requirement.
Pre-requisite: Completion of first year curriculum. Pre- or co-requisite: Ethics.
Summer 2013--Prof. Aliza Organick, Prof. Sarah Steadman
Fall 2013--Prof. Yael Cannon, Prof. Sarah Steadman
Spring 2014--Prof. Carol Suzuki, Prof. Camille Carey
The Community Lawyering Clinic provides outreach legal services in partnership with local community service providers, including non-legal disciplines. Through the Medical/Legal Alliance for Children (MLAC) the Clinic has entered into a strategic alliance (the nation’s first) with the Pediatrics Department of the UNM Health Sciences Center. MLAC law students represent children, caregivers, and families to address non-biological factors affecting children’s health including food, housing, education, physical safety (domestic violence), caregivers’ relationships and conflicts over custodial rights, immigration status, involvement in the criminal justice system, and availability of healthcare and other benefits. Students represent clients in Family Court, Children’s Court (juvenile delinquency), and other venues as necessary. In addition to the MLAC, the Community Lawyering Clinic collaborates with PB&J Family Services, the NM Public Defender and organizations serving families of incarcerated and addicted individuals, seniors, and HIV-positive people. Students work under law professor supervision and on interdisciplinary teams when appropriate. Clients include speakers of English, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
Students will be required (1) to attend and actively participate in up to five classroom sessions (ten during summer’s first three weeks) during each week of the academic semester and (2) to maintain, in addition to classroom hours, a schedule of 24 (2-hours block) fixed office hours (physically present in the clinic, working on clinic matters) each week during Summer, or 16 (2-hours block) fixed office hours each week during Fall and Spring semesters.
Students having specific questions about the Community Lawyering Clinic are encouraged to visit with Profs. Cannon, Carey, Organick, Steadman, or Suzuki.
New Mexico Law Review I - Fall
This course is limited to second year students who are selected through a writing competition. Coursework includes research, writing, proofing, and preparing materials for publication. Under editorial supervision, staff members are required to write a case note or comment of publishable quality in their first year on the NMLR. Additionally, there is a class room component that focuses on the craft of legal scholarly writing with an eye towards facilitating the completion of the case note or comment. Concurrent enrollment in a Legal Research course is highly encouraged.
New Mexico Law Review II - Spring
The second semester of law review is limited to second year students who enrolled and participated in NMLR I. The course builds on the skills acquired in the first semester and culminates in the submission of a case note or comment to be considered for publication. NMLR II also includes a classroom component.
New Mexico Law Review III - Fall
This course is limited to third year members of the NMLR and includes research, writing, proofing, preparing materials for publication, and the opportunity to be published.
New Mexico Law Review IV - Spring
This course is limited to third year members of the NMLR and includes research, writing, proofing, preparing materials for publication, and the opportunity to be published.
One-hour Practicum Course accompanying the Torts, Contracts, and Criminal Law Courses
The Practicum Course is not really a separate course; rather, it is a hands-on, practice-based extension of the Torts, Contracts, and Criminal Law courses. Students explore the theoretical connections among the three courses in the context of resolving simulated but realistic client problems. The course stresses practical and analytical skills through writing exercises while also exploring substantive law questions that are addressed in other first semester courses.
Torts is an introduction to the system governing civil liability for wrongs. Unlike contract law, in which persons establish standards governing their relations in private agreements, tort law imposes rights and duties between persons even when the parties have not done so by contract. Unlike criminal law which the government (rather than the victim) imposes societal standards through the medium litigation seeking punishment for violation of criminal law, tort litigation is controlled by the injured person who seeks not punishment, but personal compensation via money damages from the person whose violation of the laws of torts cause harm to the victim. Course coverage focuses on the tort of Negligence. As time permits, other torts are analyzed.
Issues in Family Law for People with HIV, in AIDS and the Law (David W. Webber ed., Aspen 3d ed. Supp. 2006) (with Carolyn McAllaster & Jeffrey Selbin).
Issues in Family Law for People with HIV, in AIDS and the Law (David W. Webber ed., Aspen 3d ed. Supp. 2005) (with Carolyn McAllaster & Jeffrey Selbin).
Issues in Family Law for People with HIV, in AIDS and the Law (David W. Webber ed., Aspen 3d ed. Supp. 2004) (with Carolyn McAllaster & Jeffrey Selbin).
Issues in Family Law for People with HIV, in AIDS and the Law (David W. Webber ed., Aspen 3d ed. Supp. 2003) (with Carolyn McAllaster & Jeffrey Selbin).
Issues in Family Law for People with HIV, in AIDS and the Law (David W. Webber ed., Aspen 3d ed. Supp. 2002) (with Carolyn McAllaster & Jeffrey Selbin).
Issues in Family Law for People with HIV, in AIDS and the Law (David W. Webber ed., Aspen 3d ed. Supp. 2001) (with Carolyn McAllaster & Jeffrey Selbin).
Carol M. Suzuki, Unpacking Pandora’s Box: Innovative Techniques for Effectively Counseling Asylum Applicants Suffering From Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, 4 Hastings Race & Poverty L.J. 235 (2007).
UNM School of Law
1117 Stanford NE MSC11 6070, 1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
© The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, (505) 277-0111
New Mexico's Flagship University