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Academics & Clinicals

Clinical Education & Skills Training

See the Law-in-Action Approach

Patient who was helped by the Center for Patient Partnerships
Video: The Center for Patient Partnerships

Photo of Law School
Video: The Innocence Project

Neighborhood Law Clinic student and client
Video: The Neighborhood Law Project

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Clinical Education

The University of Wisconsin Law School's tradition of excellence and its law-in-action approach to legal education are highlighted in its clinical and skills training programs. It is this law-in-action approach -- in which students learn not only what the law is, but also how the law works-- that helps develop well-educated, thoughtful graduates who are able successfully to bridge the gap between law school and practice. Clinical students receive a rich educational experience, applying the legal theory they have learned in the classroom to help real people outside of the classroom.

Clinics

Frank J. Remington Center
The Frank J. Remington Center is a law-in-action program of the Law School made up of clinical projects dedicated to teaching, service, and research. The Center provides law students with the opportunity to develop the substantive knowledge, professional skills, and judgment necessary to excel as attorneys; provides high-quality service in individual cases; and engages in empirical research necessary to bring about systemic improvements.Students receive course credit for their clinical work The Center's Newsletter describes the Center's activities in more detail, and the Center's many clinical projects are listed below. The Remington Center is located in Room 4318 of the Law School.

  • Legal Assistance to Institutionalized Persons (LAIP)
    The Legal Assistance to Institutionalized Persons Project, known as LAIP, is the largest of the Remington Center's clinical projects. In LAIP, students work under the direct supervision of clinical faculty to provide legal assistance to state and federal prison inmates throughout Wisconsin.
  • The Clinical Semester
    The Clinical Semester is an intensive immersion learning experience open to a limited number of second-and third-year students in the fall semester.Students represent clients at the federal prison at Oxford, Wisconsin. The students develop their lawyering abilities by assisting their clients with a wide variety of problems, generally centering around the validity of federal convictions and sentences under the complex federal sentencing guidelines. The emphasis is on trying to find creative, thoughtful and exacting ways to answer clients' questions, and find solutions to their problems. Students accepted into the Clinical Semester take 13 credits of clinical work, and a two-credit seminar titled Legal Practice and Professional Identity.
  • Criminal Appeals Project
    The Criminal Appeals Project gives students an opportunity to be directly involved in the appellate process. Under the direct supervision of clinical faculty, students work in pairs on the appeal of two criminal convictions. The clinical, which is available to second- and third-year law students, requires a two-semester commitment.
  • Family Law Project - Restorative Justice Project
    The Family Law Project is a civil law project serving incarcerated clients. Students in the Family Law Project, like those in the Legal Assistance to Institutionalized Persons Project, work under the direct supervision of clinical faculty to provide legal assistance to state and federal prison inmates throughout Wisconsin. The clinical, which is available to second- and third-year law students, requires a two-semester commitment.
    The Restorative Justice Project gives students the opportunity to practice mediation skills and assess the effectiveness of an alternative dispute resolution process by providing mediation between the victims of crime and the criminal offenders. The project is open to students who have completed their first year of Law School.
  • Innocence Project
    In the Innocence Project, UW law students, under the direct supervision of clinical faculty, investigate and litigate claims of innocence in cases involving inmates in state and federal prisons in Wisconsin and elsewhere. The Innocence Project is available to students who are accepted into the program in the summer after their first or second year of law school and requires a one year commitment (Summer full time, Fall 7 credits, Spring 2 credits).
  • Community Supervision Legal Assistance Project (CSLAP)
    CSLAP provides a wide range of legal assistance to clients who are on community supervision through the Wisconsin Department of Corrections' Division of Community Corrections. The clinic emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach to legal representation and provides assistance to clients with civil, criminal, and administrative matters. Specific areas of assistance include housing law, employment discrimination, child support, disability law, correction of credit reports, revocation hearings, alternatives to revocation, early release from supervision, and disposition of criminal matters.
  • Economic Justice Institute
    The Economic Justice Institute offers opportunities for students to work on various aspects of civil law addressing economic inequality and poverty, including housing, employment and consumer law.  EJC students have extensive client contact in one of three projects. Watch the VIDEO about clinical education at Wisconsin.
    • Consumer Law Litigation Clinic - The Consumer Law Litigation Clinic represents low- and moderate-income consumers in individual and class action lawsuits in federal and state courts. The Clinic operates year-round and is open to students who have completed their first year of law school. The Consumer Law Litigation Clinic trains students in all aspects of civil litigation.
    • Family Court Assistance Project - The Family Court Assistance Project is a clinical program designed to help make the legal system more accessible to low-income, unrepresented people with divorce, post-divorce, paternity, and restraining order matters. Students do not serve as advocates, but rather as facilitators/mediators, working with the parties to prepare cases for decision. Students undergo in-depth skills training in interviewing, counseling, and negotiations, and learn the nuts and bolts of family law.
    • Neighborhood Law Project - NLP provides a broad range of legal services designed to enhance the economic well-being of the residents of one of Madison's neighborhoods. The Neighborhood Law Project is open to students who have completed their first year of law school. The project is a two-semester commitment, and includes a weekly seminar in addition to the clinical work.

Center for Patient Partnerships
The Center for Patient Partnerships is a national resource for strengthening the consumer perspective in health care and building more effective partnerships among patients, providers, and other stakeholders.

Internships & Externships

Prosecution Project (Remington Center)
This program provides an opportunity for second-year students to work as summer interns in district attorneys'offices throughout Wisconsin. The student's summer experience is sandwiched between a spring classroom component and a fall reflective seminar.

Public Defender Project (Remington Center)
The Public Defender Project gives second-year students the opportunity to work as summer interns in State Public Defender trial offices throughout Wisconsin. The students' summer experience is sandwiched between a spring classroom component and a fall reflective seminar

Judicial Internship Program
The Judicial Internship Program places students with trial and appellate judges throughout Wisconsin, including placements with the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Student work varies but always emphasizes research and writing. A classroom component accompanies the placement. For more information, contact Professor David Schultz at 262-6881, deschult@wisc.edu.

Labor Law Externship
The Labor Law Externship provides placements for students in a labor law setting. Students spend two days a week working under the supervision of attorneys of the National Labor Relations Board in Milwaukee, the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission in Madison, or in other similar agencies. They attend hearings, write draft opinions, research issues, write memos, and in general are exposed to the broad range of work done by the agency. A weekly seminar on current issues provides additional learning opportunities.

Department of Justice Clinical Externship Program
Students work in various civil units of the Wisconsin Department of Justice, at the Department of Natural Resources, or 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin. The program offers law students a unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience in public advocacy and litigation. Externs practice trial, appellate and administrative law with some of the state's most well-respected litigators, working on matters statewide importance. A weekly seminar accompanies the placement.

Thurgood Marshall Externships
The Justice Thurgood Marshall Externship Program provides law students who have an interest and a commitment to civil rights work with a unique and challenging summer experience at one of three premier civil rights law firms. Placements are in Washington, D. C., New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Health Law Externship
Externship & Course -- Fall, 2006
Through supervised externships, students will be exposed to health issues that are confronting lawyers representing consumers, patients, employees, physicians, and government agencies. The course will provide an opportunity for selected students to learn health law in the context of analyzing and proposing advocacy approaches to contemporary social and legal problems.

Midwest Environmental Advocates Externship
Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA) is Wisconsin's only non-profit environmental law firm.  Student externs earn 7 semester credits working 21 hours a week at MEA.  Students work with MEA lawyers on litigation, both administrative and judicial, rule making and policy development at the state and local level.  MEA's mission includes helping citizens to organize and participate in solutions to environmental protection and environmental justice issues, giving students the opportunity to work with citizens at the grass roots level.

Other Placements:

  • Disability Rights Wisconsin
    Disability Rights Wisconsin (DRW) is the state's protection and advocacy agency for people with all types of serious disabilities. It provides a wide variety of legal and advocacy services for people who have been traditionally under served by the legal profession. Student activities can include investigation of client complaints, filing grievances and requests for hearings, informal negotiations, and preparation for litigation and/or administrative hearings. Students may also be involved with legislative and administrative issues.
  • Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence Clinical Program
    The UW-Madison Law School offers an externship program (clinical) for students at the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WCADV). Students assist with legal inquiries and research regarding domestic violence issues.

Skills Training Programs

Lawyering Skills Program
The Lawyering Skills Program provides a number of simulation courses that enable students to develop lawyering skills in a carefully supervised, hands-on classroom setting. Oral communication skills, negotiations, writing for practice, and client counseling are some of the courses offered through the program. The cornerstone of the Lawyering Skills Program is the Lawyering Skills Course, a hands-on optional third-year course that integrates what students have learned throughout law school to the core skills needed for effective law practice. The course emphasizes the skills students will need in the early years of practice.

Communication & Advocacy Program
The Communication and Advocacy Program was established in recognition of the importance of communication skills for all students, regardless of their career paths. The program coordinates many of the Law School's opportunities for students to gain experience and skill in oral and written communication-- both in and out of the classroom.