Academic Year 2024-2025 LAIP students will represent people in prison in Wisconsin seeking relief from excessive sentences. Students in this section of LAIP may have the opportunity to represent persons suffering from severe mental illness. Students will interview their clients at correctional institutions, conduct legal and factual research, draft letters and motions, and possibly deliver oral argument in court.

In the Academic Year term, students will work on motions for sentence modification, petitions for sentence adjustment, and parole advocacy. In addition, students will reflect on their role in the criminal legal system, explore the causes of the disparate impact of criminal punishment on African Americans, and identify ways in which students can address the systemic causes of mass incarceration.

Wisconsin leads the nation in Black imprisonment rates. One of every 36 Black Wisconsinites is in prison.

Academic Year students will also have the opportunity to assist Professor Wiercioch in his representation of two persons on death row in Texas. These cases will allow students to handle a range of post-conviction constitutional claims, including competency for execution, suppression of exculpatory evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective assistance of counsel.

Students will enroll in LAIP for a full academic year (3 credits in the fall, 3 credits in the spring) and fulfill their experiential learning requirement.  

Please contact Clinical Professor Greg Wiercioch if you have any questions.