In Complex Federal Litigation, students represent state and federal prisoners housed in Connecticut in federal civil rights action.  Representative matters include litigating First Amendment claims, such as freedom of religion, and Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment claims, such as gross medical care and the abuse of prisoners by correctional officers or fellow prisoners.  Since the mid-1990s, under the direction of Professor Brett Dignam, Complex Federal Litigation students have also addressed the terrible conditions of confinement experienced by female inmates housed at the federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut.  This initiative’s primary focus has been issues of sexual assault and medical care.

Complex Federal Litigation students also participate in larger policy and legal debates about prisoners’ rights.  For example, students in 2006 assisted Cover Fellow Giovanna Shay in writing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States.