About the Consumer Law Clinic
Since its inception in 1991, the Consumer Law Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School has provided legal services to lower income clients while providing law students the opportunity for hands-on training. The CLC handles individual and class action lawsuits in state and federal court covering a variety of consumer protection issues, including misrepresentation and fraud, credit scams, predatory lending, bad faith denial of insurance claims, anti-trust violations, unfair debt collection practices and "fringe banking" abuses by rent-to-own and payday loan companies. The CLC also advocates for consumers before the Wisconsin Legislature and administration agencies, and provides community-based outreach and education on consumer issues.
U.W. law students participate in all aspects of the CLC's work. They interview and counsel clients, investigate and evaluate potential cases, draft complaints, briefs, motions and discovery requests, take depositions, argue before courts, and participate in trials. Student work on legislative and administrative advocacy projects includes drafting and analyzing proposed legislation and administrative rules, delivering testimony at public hearings, and meeting with government officials. Students also prepare and deliver presentations on issues of concern to low-income consumers at community centers.
The CLC has an Advisory Board comprised of experts in consumer law and behavior. The Board meets with the clinical students each semester. During these meetings, students report on their cases and receive feedback and advice from Board members. The Board is also helpful in analyzing potential cases and their merit. Members of the Advisory Board for the 2007-08 school year are: Jeff Archibald, Archibald Consumer Law Office; Connie Kilmark, Kilmark and Associates; Mary Fons, Fons Law Office; Dan Hayes, Michael Blumenfeld Associates; Mitch Hagopian, Wisconsin Coalition for Advocacy; Kevin Magee, Legal Action of Wisconsin; Marsha Mansfield, University of Wisconsin Law School; Sarah Orr, Elder Law Center; Gerald Thain, University of Wisconsin Law School.
Mission Statement
CLC Students
The Consumer Law Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School has three primary purposes:
- Pedagogy - training law students in all aspects of civil litigation.
- Client Service - representing individuals and groups unable to obtain private counsel.
- Public Interest Advocacy - working on cases which present the opportunity to shape the law in ways that will benefit consumers in the future.
Notable Work Done by the Clinic
Here is a sample of the cases handled by CLC Students:
- A class action against a credit card company that resulted in a Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision striking down a mandatory arbitration clause as unconscionable.
- A nationwide class action on behalf of elderly consumers who use Hytrin, a high blood pressure medication, against a drug company that engaged in a variety of tactics to keep lower cost generic equivalents off the market.
- A lawsuit claiming bad faith by an HMO that refused to cover treatments for a 3 year-old boy with brain cancer.
- Numerous lawsuits filed on behalf of consumers whose cars were unlawfully repossessed.
- A lawsuit filed on behalf of several Latino consumers in Dane County victimized by a California company fraudulently promising them careers as licensed auto mechanics.
- A lawsuit filed on behalf of an elderly widow challenging false advertising and fraudulent marketing tactics by a credit card company.
- Several class actions on behalf of consumers who entered into payday loan contracts with interest rates exceeding 500%.
- An anti-trust class action on behalf of purchasers of physician services from a large medical clinic and HMO in northern Wisconsin.
- A statewide class action challenging a variety of false and deceptive practices by a company that sells timeshares in the Wisconsin Dells.
- Representation of a mentally disabled man whose home was threatened with foreclosure after a bank convinced him to take out a line credit whose payments he could not afford on his fixed income.
- Legislative advocacy on Wisconsin's Lemon Law, the Wisconsin Consumer Act and proposals on payday lending, rent-to-own, and electronic commerce.