Marsha Mansfield

Emeritus Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law; Director, Family Court Assistance Project

Education

B.S., University of Wisconsin-Madison
J.D., University of Wisconsin Law School

Biography

Marsha M. Mansfield is the Director of the Economic Justice Institute (EJI), home to the Law School's civil legal clinics: the Consumer Law Clinic, Family Court Clinic, Immigrant Justice Clinic, and Neighborhood Law Clinic. Professor Mansfield directly supervises students in the Family Court Clinic. Under her guidance, law students develop their lawyering skills through representation of and assistance to the underserved in Dane County while learning about the challenges faced by their clients and considering how they, as lawyers, might be most effective in their role as the lawyer. She also teaches Professional Responsibility.

Mansfield served two terms on Wisconsin's Access to Justice Commission. She was President of the Dane County Bar Association in 2005 as well as Chair of the DCBA Delivery of Legal Services Committee. She has presented seminars on both ethics and family law topics and trained attorneys for Legal Action's Volunteer Lawyer's Project. She served for two terms on the State Bar's Board of Governors and associated committees. She is a member of the Family Law and Litigation Sections, the ABA Family Law Section, and served three terms on the Office of Lawyer Regulation District 9 Committee. She was appointed Reporter for the Office of Lawyer Regulation Procedures Review Committee by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2016.  She served on the Advisory Board of the Consumer Law Litigation Clinic at the U.W. Law School and helped create the U.W. Law School's Pro Bono Project. Mansfield is also of-counsel to the Hawks Quindel Law Firm in Madison, WI.

Scholarship: "Litigants Without Lawyers," 67 Hastings Law Rev. 1389-426 (2016).  "New Roles to Solve Old Problems: Lawyering for People in Today's Context," 56 N.Y.L.S.L. Rev. 367 (2011/12), "Wisconsin's Individual-at-Risk Restraining Order: An Analysis of the First Thirty Months," 8 Elder L.J. 247 (2011), "Keeping the Promise of Equal Justice," Wisconsin Lawyer, (Vol. 83, No. 4, April 2010). and, "Using Family Law to Obtain Immigration Relief for Minors," Clearinghouse Review On-Line (2014).

Scholarship & Publications

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Research Interests

  • Professor Mansfield's research interests are focused on access to justice issues, particularly as they impact self- represented litigants in the family law system.

Activities

  • Sarah Davis and Marsha Mansfield presented “The Journey From a Dream to a Game-Changer: Using Technology to Transform Civil Legal Aid” at the 2021 Innovations in Technology Virtual Conference in January.

  • Sarah Davis and Marsha Mansfield (along with their technology partner Nicole Bradick) presented "LIFT Dane: Technology-driven legal assistance to clear civil legal barriers" at the 2020 Self-Represented Litigation Conference, held in Nashville in March 2020.

  • In 2010, Marsha Mansfield co-authored an article in the Wisconsin Lawyer examining Wisconsin's individual-at-risk restraining order. In 2006, the Wisconsin Legislature amended the existing law to address abuse against elderly people and younger vulnerable adults. The article examines the effectiveness of the law, based on the results of a study looking at the first 30 months of the order's availability.

  • Marsha Mansfield  published an article co-written with Anne Applebaum '09 entitled "Keeping the Promise of Equal Justice" in Wisconsin Lawyer Vol. 83, No. 4, April 2010.

News & Media

Teaching Areas

  • Civil Litigation
  • Consumer Law
  • Ethics & Professional Responsibilities
  • Family Law
no courses found
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