UNITED STATES
New York Times

By BEN PROTESS APRIL 8, 2014

Some law school students send the Justice Department résumés and references. At the University of Virginia School of Law, one class is sending document requests and lawsuits.

The students, along with professors and a university librarian, are tackling the contentious world of white-collar crime, challenging federal prosecutors to unseal settlements with big banks and corporations. In a matter of months, the classroom litigators at the law school’s First Amendment clinic filed their first lawsuit against the Justice Department and won the release of a secret settlement deal.

Building on the test case, the clinic ramped up its effort this week, filing a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain 30 other settlement deals that remain under wraps, a preliminary move that could foreshadow another lawsuit. The deals — mostly nonprosecution agreements with the British bank HSBC, the casino…