Second- and third-year law students have the opportunity to participate in the Frank J. Remington Center's Criminal Appeals Project. This fall-spring project combines class work on appellate procedure, client-centered representation on appeal, issue spotting, and persuasive writing, with work on an actual criminal appeal assigned by the State Public Defender's Office.
Students in the Criminal Appeals Project will work in pairs on a criminal appeal under the supervision of Remington Center clinical faculty. Appeals will be timed so that the transcripts begin arriving early in the fall semester. Assuming that a case has merit, briefing in the Court of Appeals will take place during spring semester. Please note that each student must make a 2-semester commitment, to ensure that he or she can take a case from start to finish.
In the fall semester, students will take a 3-credit class entitled "Advanced Criminal Procedure: Representing the Criminal Appellant," along with an additional credit of clinical work. This class qualifies for the 60-credit rule. The class will have one weekly large group section and one weekly discussion section. In the large group section, students will study appellate procedure, the ethics of appellate representation, issue spotting, and persuasion. At the same time, students will be meeting their appeal clients, reading transcripts, and analyzing their cases in the discussion sections.
During spring semester, students will take "Appellate Advocacy II," for 1-3 credits. Credits are variable depending on how much work each student's appeal requires. There will be some large-group meetings in the spring (mostly guest lectures), but most of the work will be on postconviction motions or hearings and/or writing appellate briefs.
If you are interested in the Criminal Appeals Project, please contact Clinical Assistant Professor Byron Lichstein in Room 4318E. You can telephone Professor Lichstein at 265-2741; or email at bclichstein@wisc.edu. For more information on the classroom portion of this project, please see the course description on the Law School's web site.
