Michele LaVigne
Clinical Professor of Law
E-mail: mlavigne@wisc.edu
Telephone: 262-9859
Office: Room 4318K, Law School
Education:
B.A. 1974, Syracuse University
J.D. 1978, George Washington University
Teaching Areas:
Constitutional Law
Criminal Law
Ethics & Professional Responsibilities
Trial Advocacy
Biography
Before joining the Law School's clinical faculty, Michele LaVigne practiced as a State Public Defender in Madison, Wisconsin. She now teaches criminal law, constitutional litigation (4th, 5th, 6th amendments) and trial advocacy. She is the director of the Remington Center's Public Defender Project, in which law students are placed as interns in public defender offices throughout Wisconsin.
Prof. LaVigne is a member of the faculty of the National Criminal Defense College and the Wisconsin Public Defender Trial Skills Academy. She has given presentations to defense attorneys around the country on trial advocacy.
During most of her tenure at the Law School, Prof. LaVigne has also been involved in research and litigation on the rights of deaf defendants. She co-authored "An Interpreter Isn't Enough: Deafness, Language and Due Process," 2003 Wis. L. Rev. 843 (with McCay Vernon, Ph.D), which discusses deafness and language acquisition and their combined effects on deaf and severely hard-of-hearing individuals in the criminal justice system. Prof. LaVigne has lectured in a number of states to organizations of the deaf and hard of hearing, as well as to interpreter groups. In 2005, Prof. LaVigne received the Distinguished Member of the Year Award from the Wisconsin Association the Deaf.
In 1999, Prof. LaVigne developed a mock trial program at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf in Delavan, Wisconsin. This is a joint undertaking involving WSD, the law school, and the law firm of Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe. Every year law students go to Delavan and coach deaf high school students who act as lawyers and witnesses in a mock trial. In 2004, the WSD mock trial team competed in the State Bar High School Mock Trial Competition. This was the first time in Wisconsin that a deaf team participated. The WSD team won the regional competition and placed sixth in the state semi-finals. WSD will be entering a team again in the 2006 competition.
