News

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  Prison Portraits: Photographic Self-Representation in an Image Desert
  December 7
  As the Docs Program undertakes visual work on behalf of lifers incarcerated for decades because they are ineligible for parole, we confront a ban on photographing and filming in prisons.  Prison Portraits may be useful in providing not only a way to deal with the ban, but also an argument why it is wrong.
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  “Get Digi With It”: AUDIOVISUAL TECHNOLOGY’S CHALLENGE TO RESTRICTIONS ON RECORDING IN PENNSYLVANIA PRISONS
  October 21
  The PA Department of Corrections’ nearly complete ban on recording in its facilities by lawyers and the media needs to be reexamined in light of advances in the use of digital audiovisual technology and visual legal advocacy.
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  When HBO or POV Comes Calling: Defense Counsel’s Role in an Observational Documentary of a Criminal Proceeding
  September 21
  Supreme Court precedent required that a juvenile offender serving four consecutive terms of LWOP be resentenced.  Learn about the role his defense lawyers played in representing him as the subject of the observational documentary “15 to Life.”
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  To Ask or Not to Ask? The Law, Ethics, & Etiquette of Capturing the Public for “DIY Stock”
  August 28
  What guidance should law students be given about capturing candid images of the public, in public and without the subjects’ consent, for a “DIY Stock” gallery?
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  Storytellers Needed! Collaborations and the Promise of i-Docs
  August 14
  When social justice collaborations and storytellers are in short supply, visual legal advocates should pursue the promise of i-Docs (Interactive Documentaries) to encourage participation and activism for change.
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  VLA Production Sine Qua Non: A DIY “Stock” Image Gallery with a “Street Vibe”
  August 3
  Having a DIY gallery of stock images of your own making is a sine qua non to teaching and practicing visual legal advocacy.  Capturing stills and video footage with the characteristics of street photography in mind will really enrich the collection.
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  Showing Where We Come From – A Public Defender’s Use of Video in Pretrial Plea Negotiations
  June 16

  In making the case for resources and training in visual legal advocacy, a public defender describes how a video she shot in a client’s home with his mother was effective in reducing his sentence.   

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  “Nowhere to Run”: A Student Video on the Impact of Recreational Disparities on City Kids
  June 6

  Sometimes legal research generates a good topic for a student-made visual legal advocacy video.  It did in the case of “Nowhere to Run: Giving Philly’s Urban Youth a Place to Play.”

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  Affirming Human Connections in Interviews
  May 31
  Conducting interviews for social justice documentaries gives students the opportunity to understand the importance of affirming human connections as they learn how to use cameras, lights, and mikes,