Vol. 74, No. 6, June 2001

University of Wisconsin Law School

Building an understanding of how the law relates to the outside world has long been a focal point of the University of Wisconsin Law School's curriculum. That educational philosophy, dubbed in the early 1900s as "law in action," pervades the law school's teaching approach, whether it's in classroom discussions of the law's impact on people's lives and on society as a whole, in skills training courses that emphasize learning through simulated case work, or in clinical programs providing students direct experience with real clients' legal problems.

Being the state's only public law school affords a special challenge, according to dean Kenneth B. Davis Jr. "We see our mission as serving the entire spectrum of law students," Davis says. "Some of our graduates may end up in large corporate law firms on the East or West Coast; others may return to their hometowns in Wisconsin to join a small practice. We may have a greater mix of career expectations among our students than many other law schools. We want to provide something for all our students, wherever they may be going."

The first-year curriculum exposes students to an array of general law courses. But the setting differs in a key way from the stereotypical large-lecture law school class. First-year students take one course with a small group of 20 or so classmates, rather than the usual group about triple that size, which offers a couple of benefits. "First," Davis notes, "it provides a greater opportunity to work on specific skills and to engage in give-and-take on legal issues, which you don't necessarily have in a huge class. And second, it provides an important socialization process" that helps ease the transition into law school.

In the second and third years, students can opt to further explore any of several legal areas: criminal law, environmental law, labor and employment law, international and comparative law, intellectual property, and more. "Someone once looked at the number of different courses various law schools offer," Davis reports, "and we were toward the top of the list. That didn't surprise me because we're responding to that mission I referred to earlier."

Clinical programs are available to students after completion of the first year. The Frank J. Remington Center is the umbrella for nine such projects. The prosecution and defender projects involve work in public defender and district attorney offices around the state; the seven remaining projects entail legal services to prison inmates and other institutionalized persons, health care patients, crime victims, and residents of disadvantaged Madison neighborhoods. All projects blend classroom and clinical components. "I think if you ask students what they learn best from clinical experiences, by far and away they'd say interviewing, counseling, and speaking to real clients," says Remington Center director Meredith Ross. "I think another skill they learn that they often don't recognize is how to deal with messy facts - those ambiguous facts that develop as you move along in a case."

In addition to the Remington Center programs, the law school has five other in-house clinical programs - the Legal Defense Program, Center for Public Representation, Family Law Clinic, Consumer Law Litigation Clinic, and Great Lakes Indian Law Center - plus nine internship/externship programs, ranging from judicial internships to working with various advocacy organizations in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the country.

Another approach to skills training is embodied in 17 skills-oriented courses. The most comprehensive of these is the 15-hour-a-week general practice skills course taught by Ralph Cagle, director of the general practice skills program, plus a corps of 80-some lawyers Cagle recruits from around Wisconsin, and even from out of state, to help teach the course. Cagle notes the "generous spirit" on behalf of practicing attorneys who make this program possible. Visiting instructors pay their own transportation, and each receives a $50-per-day honorarium for usually a four-day commitment. "The goal is to teach law students what lawyers really do," Cagle explains, "and the only way to do that is through lawyers who really do those things. We cover client interviewing, counseling, negotiating, drafting, oral advocacy, problem solving - the range of skills that lawyering is about."

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