The Global Rights Innovation Lab Clinic seeks applications for a Data and Technology Clinical Supervisor. This is a fiscal-year, non-tenure track position, and the annual salary is fixed for all Clinical Supervisors entering in the same year.
Under the supervision of the Clinic Director, the Data and Technology Clinical Supervisor’s general responsibilities include designing and teaching clinic seminars; developing and leading clinic projects in partnership with human rights and other civil society organizations and representatives of directly impacted communities; and providing close supervision, guidance, and feedback to teams of students working on those projects. They will develop project-based curricula to give law students the necessary skills in the relevant digital technologies so that they acquire fluency in the technical capabilities of relevant digital processes which will equip them to participate and co-create innovative human rights advocacy tools. In carrying out their work, the Clinical Supervisor will provide mentorship and guidance to students seeking to integrate and leverage digital technologies in legal advocacy and will serve as a critical interdisciplinary bridge between the experts practicing in the field of data science and the legal profession. The Data and Technology Clinical Supervisor will play a crucial role in transforming complex human rights data into meaningful insights and compelling narratives through innovative data visualization techniques and other relevant digital processes. This position will work closely with human rights researchers, advocates, and decision-makers to support evidence-based advocacy and policy formulation. Expertise in data analysis, digital technologies, and human rights and social justice issues will drive the Clinic’s mission to advance innovative legal advocacy, policy decisions, and social change strategies.
The Clinical Program is committed to building an equitable and inclusive faculty and staff to teach and work in a multicultural learning environment. The law school provides support for Clinical Supervisors to attend conferences that advance their professional development goals and interests.
The Data and Technology Clinical Supervisor position is a working title for UC FieldWork Supervisors, which are academic appointees in an organized bargaining unit and are exclusively represented by American Federation of Teachers - Unit 18.
Berkeley Law seeks candidates who will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity in higher education and the Clinical Program through their teaching and service. Qualified women and members of underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply.
Clinic Description
The Global Rights Innovation Lab Clinic (GRIL) is a new clinic at Berkeley Law that will launch in January 2025. It will work at the intersection of human rights and digital technology to generate compelling, data-driven human rights advocacy through documentation, analysis, and narratives to drive legal advocacy, policy decisions, and social change strategies. Once the mainstay of human rights campaigns, in the new media landscape, traditional human rights fact-finding reports and policy briefs have a limited audience. Utilizing data analysis and visualization tools to uncover patterns of injustice, discrimination, and human rights abuses, and presenting findings in a compelling and accessible manner deepens stakeholder engagement and reaches new audiences. Through its work, the Clinic aims to train the next generation of human rights lawyers to support human rights activists, address systemic drivers of discrimination and marginalization, and promote human rights values and causes by harnessing the power of data and technology to advance innovative legal and advocacy strategies.
The Clinic adopts a problem-based, holistic approach, which recognizes that while traditional legal strategies are vital, these must work in concert with additional interventions to advance social justice including community engagement, data analysis, storytelling, and collaborative partnerships. Working in service of human rights organizations and in compliance with human rights standards, the Clinic is a site of innovation and experimentation. We seek to utilize a variety of digital technologies to create advocacy outputs for our clients and partners that will enhance engagement, decision-making, and audience experience using data visualization, digital storytelling, and/or AI technologies.
Finally, by training graduate students to leverage digital technologies to convey complex relationships between facts and law, enhance audience engagement, enable proactive decision making, or foster empathy and promote awareness of social justice causes, the Clinic creates a pipeline of professionals who are ready on day one to harness the power of digital technologies to advance social justice.
Responsibilities
Under the supervision of the Clinic Director, the Clinical Supervisor will be responsible for:
Clinical Supervision and Advocacy (80%)
- Assist in designing and teaching components of the Clinic seminar.
- Train and supervise six to eight Clinic students per semester.
- Manage Clinic projects/cases and vet new Clinic cases/projects.
- Teach and train students how to analyze human rights data from various sources.
- Create interactive data visualizations that will allow students to communicate key insights and craft storytelling.
- Collaborate with human rights researchers and advocates to coach students on identifying patterns, trends, and anomalies in the data.
- Support advocacy efforts by assisting students with data-driven reports in preparation for presentations.
- Formulate plans to help students stay informed about emerging trends in data analysis and digital technologies in the context of human rights.
- Develop and maintain Clinic relationships with clients, partners, and other stakeholders.
- Travel to offsite meetings as needed with Clinic students to work with clients/partners.
- Manage the Clinic docket during summers.
Administrative Duties (15%)
- Organize programmatic events, such as conferences, workshops and speaker series.
- Promote the Clinic to students and other constituencies and organize Clinic events.
- Engage in media relations and development, including speaking at public events and with the press.
- Participate in professional development, training, and networking activities.
Other Duties as Assigned (5%)
- Perform other duties as needed.