Born in Miami, Florida to parents of Cuban-Argentine origin, William Mueller knew that if he was going to go to law school, it was going to be at Miami Law. Mueller attended Carnegie Mellon for college and received a B.A. in Professional Writing, a B.S. in Decision Science, and a minor in Business Administration. Upon completion of his undergraduate degrees, Mueller transitioned immediately from college to law school – applying only to Miami Law.
In Mueller’s 2L year, Professor Ricardo Bascuas recommended that he apply to the University Of Miami School Of Law’s Health Rights Clinic which Mueller has found to be among the most fruitful experiences while at Miami Law.
“As an intern in the Health Rights Clinic, I represented low-income clients of various racial backgrounds by providing written and oral advocacy and conducting legal research in legal matters related to health.”
One experience in the clinic has been his experience in the A2J (Access to Justice) Project, an initiative spearheaded by CALI and the Chicago-Kent College of Law to partner technologically savvy law students with legal aid organizations.
In A2J, students work to create document assembly projects for impoverished self-represented litigants and underserved populations, to bring them closer to "justice" within each state's legal system. To do so, the A2J project uses software-- the A2J Author- to create self-guided interviews that lead a self-represented litigant, step-by-step, through the filling and filing of their own legal form.
William’s supervisors at the Health Rights Clinic, JoNel Newman and Melissa Swain, came to Mueller and a number of other students to develop Miami Law’s first A2J interview to help individuals fill and file pre-need guardianship forms with the probate courts in South Florida.
Together the students developed the project from start to finish and a few weeks ago, pitched the final product to the Greater Legal Services of Miami and several other agencies that provide free legal services to the South Florida community at the Regional Legal Services Advocates Committee Quarterly Meeting.
This summer, Mueller was given the opportunity to show the finished project at the 2014 CALI Conference for Law School Computing at Harvard Law School. He presented alongside the director of the A2J project in Chicago-Kent, Jessica Bolack, a professor from Columbia Law, and Alexander Rabanal, the access to justice fellow at Chicago-Kent.
Though CALI had funded six pilot projects in law school clinics - at Columbia, CUNY, UNC Chapel Hill, Georgetown, Concordia, and the University of Miami - Mueller was the sole student presenter in the session, discussing what was learned from these six pilot schools and how we can capitalize on that knowledge for future.
In addition to his work with the Human Rights Clinic, Mueller is an AmeriCorps J.D. and advocate for veteran’s legal rights in areas of Veteran’s Disability and Compensation benefits, Social Security benefits, and Immigration. Last summer, he interned for Judge Peter R. Lopez at the 11th Judicial Circuit. And this summer, Mueller worked as a student-fellow for the Health Rights Clinic, and as a clerk for the appellate law firm of Kula & Samson LLP (now Kula & Associates, P.A.).
As made obvious by Mueller’s multiple passions and projects, there is no doubt that his commitment to serving others will lead anywhere but upwards in his career. “Without a doubt the highlight of my Miami Law experience has been my participation in the Health Rights Clinic.”
