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Key Facts
- State level: Louisiana Senate Bill No. 549 (2010) proposed restrictions on law school clinics that received state funding, including limits on filing certain petitions, motions, or suits against a government agency.
- State level: Louisiana Senate Bill No. 549 (2010) proposed limits on filing actions seeking monetary damages against an individual, business, or government agency.
- National overview: Louisiana Senate Bill No. 549 (2010) proposed limiting clinics’ ability to raise state constitutional challenges in both state and federal court, with limited exceptions.
- National overview: Louisiana Senate Bill No. 549 (2010) proposed allowing, subject to Louisiana Supreme Court guidelines for law students, representation before both state and federal administrative agencies and tribunals.
- State level: The proposed bill language described oversight by specified Louisiana legislative committees and included a proposed consequence tied to forfeiture of all state funding for a university for the fiscal year.
- State level: The proposed bill text also described grounds for recusal of the student acting as an attorney, faculty attorney, or the legal clinic in a court proceeding.
- State level: Louisiana Supreme Court amendment materials described Rule XX as serving two primary purposes: training approved law students in legal practice and providing legal services to indigent persons.
- National overview: The Rule XX amendment materials discussed an indigency threshold increase to 200% of the federal poverty level and also discussed a Section 10 limitation tied to student court appearance rules for certain solicited-client situations.
Last reviewed: May 2026. Legal rules, forms, deadlines, and procedures can change by jurisdiction, agency, and court system.
- What Louisiana Senate Bill No. 549 proposed in 2010
- Proposed categories of clinic activity prohibited versus permitted
- Oversight, funding consequences, and recusal in the bill text
- Rule XX amendment materials the student practice rule’s purposes and indigency threshold
- Rule XX Section 10 discussion student court appearance limitations
- How to read the ABA reference and the “killed on May 19, 2010” description in an archive
- Related legal information
- Sources
This archive recovery revisits a May 2010 policy discussion about Louisiana law school clinic activities by pairing the introduced text of Louisiana Senate Bill No. 549 (2010) with related Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XX amendment materials.
The historical value of the item sits in how the proposed bill language tried to fit clinic work within a structured student-practice framework described in Rule XX materials, rather than treating clinic activity as purely an independent policy choice.
The archive record centers on a legacy reference to a “statement of ABA President Lamm” about Louisiana Senate Bill 549, using the title and date as listed in a Tulane Environmental Law Clinic archive document rather than treating the ABA statement text as a verified legal source in this recovery.
What Louisiana Senate Bill No. 549 proposed in 2010
Louisiana Senate Bill No. 549 (2010) sought to amend and reenact R.S. 51:942(E) and to enact R.S. 9:2794.1 to provide certain restrictions on actions, proceedings, and activities by certain law school clinics.
Proposed categories of clinic activity prohibited versus permitted
The proposed framework described a set of prohibited litigation and filing activities, alongside categories of permitted clinic activity tied to Louisiana Supreme Court guidelines for law students.
| Proposed R.S. 9:2794.1 category | Examples described in the bill text |
|---|---|
| Prohibited filings and litigation | Filing petitions, motions, or suits against a government agency; filing actions seeking monetary damages against an individual, business, or government agency; and raising state constitutional challenges in state or federal court (with limited exceptions) |
| Permitted activities (subject to guidance) | The prosecution and defense of criminal cases; representation in state juvenile court; and representing individuals and businesses before state and federal administrative agencies and tribunals, to the extent consistent with Louisiana Supreme Court guidelines pertaining to law students |
Because the proposed statute used Louisiana Supreme Court “guidelines … pertaining to law students” as a condition for allowed clinic work, the bill text linked legislative limits to the student-practice rule framework described in the Rule XX materials.
Oversight, funding consequences, and recusal in the bill text
The proposed bill also described oversight, consequences, and courtroom participation limits through the structure of the bill.
The bill text described oversight by the House Committee on Commerce and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and International Affairs. It also described that a violation would result in the forfeiture of all state funding for the university for that fiscal year. Finally, it described grounds for recusal of the student acting as an attorney, faculty attorney, or the legal clinic in a court proceeding.
Rule XX amendment materials the student practice rule’s purposes and indigency threshold
Separate from the bill’s proposed statutory restrictions, the Louisiana Supreme Court amendment materials described the purpose of the Student Practice Rule in Rule XX. In the Justice Lemmon concurrence and dissent material, Rule XX is described as having two primary purposes: to provide training to approved law students in the practice of law and to provide legal services to indigent persons in the community.
Those same amendment materials also addressed indigency in numeric terms. The Lemmon material stated that the amendment adopted increased the threshold for indigency to 200% of the federal poverty level, which functions in the amendment discussion as part of an eligibility approach for legal services.
Rule XX Section 10 discussion student court appearance limitations
The Supreme Court amendment materials also discussed a restriction labeled as “Section 10.” In the Justice Calogero concurrence material, the discussion frames the Section 10 issue as involving students appearing in court, specifically in cases where the client was solicited by anyone associated with the clinic.
How to read the ABA reference and the “killed on May 19, 2010” description in an archive
The Tulane Environmental Law Clinic archive narrative states that a Louisiana Senate committee “killed Senate Bill 549” on May 19, 2010. The same narrative also lists an ABA President Lamm statement dated May 12, 2010 titled “Statement of ABA President Lamm Re: Louisiana Senate Bill 549 to Restrict Law School Clinic Activities.”
Because this recovery focuses on verifiable text excerpts from the introduced bill and the Supreme Court amendment PDFs, the Tulane narrative functions as historical secondary context for how the archive item described the bill’s procedural fate and the associated ABA reference.
