What is the Neighborhood Law Project?
The Neighborhood Law Project (NLP) is a community-based poverty law clinic located on South Park Street in the heart of Madison's South Side. NLP students provide individual representation in landlord-tenant, public benefits, and wage and hour cases; they also work on community advocacy projects, such as legislative analysis, community legal education, and community mobilization projects. NLP students work under the close supervision of the NLP clinical faculty. NLP's service mission is to provide a broad range of legal and advocacy services to low-income people in the communities surrounding the Law School. Our educational mission is to create a learning environment where, by assuming responsibility for matters affecting low income persons, students develop "lawyering skills" and learn how to think critically about the role and limits of law as a force for justice and social change. Students engage in traditional litigation practice, using skills such as fact investigation, legal research, analysis, drafting, negotiation, counseling, and trial work. Students also learn to participate in and consider less traditional lawyering activities, such as public speaking, drafting community education materials, and participating in local campaigns for social and economic justice.
Download the NLP brochure in English or Espanol.
If you are interested in further information about the NLP contact Director Marsha Mansfield at 262-9142; or by email at mmmansfield@wisc.edu.