Hannah Burton
Mitchell Hamline student Hannah Burton has won an Outstanding Clinic Student award from the Clinical Legal Education Association.
Burton worked extensively with Mitchell Hamline’s Child Protection Clinic during her 2L year. There, she represented a parent in a case seeking to reestablish parental rights. She also testified before Minnesota lawmakers on legislation to eliminate the presumption to terminate parental rights in child protection proceedings. And she headed efforts to identify attorneys who are qualified to represent relatives and kin in child welfare cases.
“Hannah shows up for her clients, peers, and supervisors with overflowing compassion, courageous vulnerability, and zealous skepticism of the status quo,” said Professor Natalie Netzel, the institute’s education and advocacy director. “In addition to these accomplishments, Hannah embodies the tenets of trauma-informed care in her work.”
Burton, 32, was a social worker for eight years before starting law school at Mitchell Hamline. In April, she co-presented with Netzel about working with kin in child welfare cases at a conference for the ABA Section for Children and the Law.
“Being in the clinic this past year has been the opportunity of a lifetime,” said Burton. “I’m grateful for the time and energy Mitchell Hamline and the clinic professors invest in students so we can have these valuable experiences.”
Burton plans to continue her work with the clinic next fall and is already preparing for the 2023 legislative session. She also hopes to work with Netzel to expand concepts around “mutual care” to create and support a community of emotional support among all clinical students.
