Aadhithi Padmanabhan (’14), Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, was quoted on the law school’s website discussing her leadership of the new Federal Appellate Immigration Clinic, where students advocate before federal circuit courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals on behalf of clients facing deportation (“Teamwork and Persistence: New Federal Appellate Immigration Clinic Seeks to Protect Migrants from ‘Dragnet of Deportation,’” Dec. 13). As director of the new clinic, Aadhithi advises her students to embrace challenges. “When you take a case that other people might not take, that’s where you can make the biggest impact,” she said. Noting that students work collaboratively in teams of two or three, Aadhithi explained, “This is a clinic where we’re all going to kind of sink or swim together. . . . There’s very few opportunities to develop those skills in law school because it’s so individualized, and that’s something I emphasize in clinic as a way to make the work both fun and manageable.” Instilling the power of persistence, Aadhithi concluded, “One thing about my clinical experience that really shaped the way I lawyer to this day is the philosophy of never giving up. A loss is a loss until you can convert it into a win. You just keep going. That’s the ethos I want students in the clinic to develop.”
