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13.1 Overview
In the Law School’s experiential learning programs, students earn course credit for doing actual lawyering work, either for real clients or in simulated settings. The Law School provides several types of experiential learning to students, including a variety of “live-client” clinical programs; several externship programs; and the Lawyering Skills Program.
13.2 Live-Client Clinics
The Law School’s “live-client” clinical opportunities—so
called because students interview, counsel, and sometimes represent
actual clients—are among the most extensive in the country. The
Frank J. Remington Center houses five live-client clinical projects
focusing on the area of criminal justice: the Legal Assistance to
Institutionalized Persons Project (LAIP); the Criminal Appeals
Project; the Community Supervision Legal Assistance Project
(CSLAP); the Wisconsin Innocence Project; the Family Law Project;
the Restorative Justice Project; and the Hayes Police-Prosecution
Internship.
The Law School also provides live-client clinical opportunities in the civil arena. The Remington Center’s Economic Justice Clinic, comprising the Consumer Law Litigation Clinic, the Family Court Assistance Project (FCAP), and the Neighborhood Law Project, focuses on involving students in economic justice issues through individual and class-action litigation, as well as through economic development and community education. The Center for Patient Partnerships offers law students the opportunity to work with students from the schools of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Social Work in advising patients on issues involving their health care.
In all the live-client clinics, students’ work with clients is closely supervised by clinical faculty members. The clinical work is generally accompanied by a classroom component focusing on substantive and procedural law.
13.3 Externships
In externship programs (sometimes, confusingly, called “internship programs”), students receive course credit for working in an off-campus legal setting, such as a judge’s office or a state agency, under the supervision of an on-site attorney. To ensure the educational value of the externship, a classroom component accompanies the experience.
Externships include, for example, the Judicial Internship Program, which provides students with semester-long placements in the offices of judges at all levels; the Wisconsin Department of Justice Clinical Externship Program, which places students in various civil units of the Wisconsin Department of Justice; and the Remington Center’s Prosecution and Public Defender Projects, which places students for 10-week summer sessions in district attorneys’ and public defender offices throughout Wisconsin. There are also externships in civil rights, labor law, and health care.
13.4 The Lawyering Skills Program
The Lawyering Skills Program differs from the other clinical programs at the Law School in that it employs the use of simulation exercises, many of which are taught by practicing lawyers, to provide students with the opportunity to integrate what students have learned throughout law school to the core skills needed for effective law practice. The Lawyering Skills course is open to third-year students, and emphasizes the skills that they will need in the early years of practice.
All clinical and skills programs at the Law School are governed by Rule 3.14 of the Law School Rules.
13.5 Frequently Asked Questions
Who can enroll in clinical programs, and when?
Clinical programs are available to students in their
second and third years of law school. Some programs, such as LAIP,
target students who are entering the summer after their first year.
Other programs, such as the Lawyering Skills Course, focus on
third-year students. The clinics vary in their timing and duration.
Some require only a one-semester commitment. Others require a
fall-spring commitment. Still others are available as stand-alone
summer programs. Finally, clinics may require a prerequisite course
(such as Evidence) before students can enroll, and most require
that students take a classroom component, as well as a clinical
component, during the clinical experience.
How do students enroll in clinical programs?
Most clinics are “consent of instructor”
courses; that is, they do not have open enrollment, but instead
require students to apply and be accepted into the clinic. The
clinics provide information on how to apply, at “clinic fairs”
which take place once each semester in the atrium. In addition,
the contact persons listed on the clinic Web pages will provide
information on how to apply.
Where do students work if they are enrolled in clinical
programs?
That depends on the program. All of the Law
School’s live-client clinics are housed in the Law School, and
the students do the bulk of their work in the clinic offices. But
they may travel to meet clients outside of Madison (e.g. LAIP
clients are incarcerated around Wisconsin), or in Madison (e.g. the
Neighborhood Law Project maintains offices on the south side of
Madison, where students staff office hours). Students enrolled in
externship programs will work in offices all around Wisconsin.
Do students enrolled in clinics get to appear in court?
Student activities in law school clinical programs
are governed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Under SCR 50,
students who have earned 45 credits can appear in court on behalf
of clients, as long as they are accompanied by a supervising
attorney.
How many credits do students receive for their clinical
work? Is it graded?
For the clinical component of their experience, Law
School Rule 3.14(5) requires a student to perform a minimum of 45
hours of work per semester per credit (assuming a 15-week semester,
that comes out to a minimum of 3 hours per credit per week). Thus,
the number of credits will vary, depending on how many hours of
work a given clinical program requires for enrollment. The
clinical work is generally graded as Satisfactory or
Unsatisfactory. The classroom component of the students’
experience will generally involved 1-3 credits, and can be graded
on a Satisfactory-Unsatisfactory, or letter-grade basis.
Do clinical course credits apply toward Law School
graduation requirements?
Yes. All credits earned in clinics, whether for the
clinical or classroom component of the students’ work, apply
toward the 90 credits required for graduation. In addition, a
maximum of five clinical credits may be applied toward the
60-credit diploma privilege requirement. Separate from the
clinical component, the classroom component of many clinical
programs may apply toward the 60-credit rule. Students should
contact the instructor(s) of each clinic they are interested in, to
determine the exact title of classroom courses that accompany the
clinical work.
Can students create their own Clinical Program?
Students are not free to “construct their own”
clinical program or receive academic credit for any internship or
externship that has not been approved by the Law School as part of
its Clinical Program.
"When liberty destroys order, the hunger for order will destroy liberty" Will Durant
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments
of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of
challenge and controversy." Martin Luther King, Jr.