Indigent people who bring civil rights claims against the federal government may have their cases assigned to UC Davis law school students in a new clinical program beginning this fall. The law school's civil rights clinic is funded in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The clinic will offer the chance for certain plaintiffs, the majority of whom are prisoners unable to afford legal representation, to gain access to legal services. Law students receive academic credit for their clinical work. Cases that might be forwarded to the clinic by federal court judges in the Eastern District of California include Eighth Amendment cruel-and-unusual-punishment and denial-of-medical-care cases, says Margaret Johns, a law school professor who developed the clinic's concept.