Thirty years ago, the UW School of Law embarked on an experiment in legal education. Law students were increasingly turning to a career in law for justice and public interest, not always in search of the next open seat as partner in a firm.
Law school faculty were looking for new ways to bring the law to life for their students’ three years of law school. Faculty and students alike recognized the value in experiential education that could be found in public service opportunities during law school, such as externships in the public defender’s office, but such work was usually unpaid or could not be applied for credit. (Since the implementation of the UW law school’s public service requirement, however, externships now can apply toward the 60-hour graduation requirement.
As a result, then-Professor Charles Z. Smith worked with then-attorney Marsha Pechman, now a U.S. District Court judge, for the creation of the University Defender Services, the first clinical law program at the UW. What Smith and Pechman set out to do in 1979 was to create a program that, as part of the law school’s curriculum, would provide valuable experience under the tutelage of faculty and practicing attorneys in service to the community.
In the beginning, the UDS project took 10 third-year law students and placed them under the supervision of faculty, who were members of the bar, as Rule 9 interns. The clinical law program offered students real-life, hands-on experience for credit.
Three decades later, the program has grown to more than 10 clinics, offering services to the community in various areas of the law, including tax and unemployment compensation, mediation, immigration, tribal court public defense, environmental law, and child and youth advocacy.
“Clinical legal education is growing around the country and UW is one of the leaders,” said professor and clinic director Debbie Maranville. “For one thing, we serve about 60% of each graduating class. Another thing is the range of clinics we offer. I’m very proud of the different subject matters we have and the different types of lawyering skills that are involved.”
In addition to doctrinal, classroom lectures that teach the skills to represent a client or mediate a case, the case work provides relevant lawyering skills.
“Students benefit to work with a client on real cases and to better hone their legal skills: fact investigation, research and writing,” said Innocence Project Northwest Clinic Director Jackie McMurtrie. “Students say this is the best experience that they’ve had in law school because they are able to work with clients on real problems.”
Clinics also offer students an opportunity to serve the community, sometimes with a very profound outcome. Last winter, for example, students working in the Innocence Project Northwest secured that clinic’s 13th conviction reversal. The Washington Court of Appeals reversed the conviction thanks to evidence produced by then-clinic student Boris Reznikov, who helped prove James Anderson was in California when the crime was committed.
This summer, UW law students can be found in more than a dozen different countries working with human rights organizations, government and NGO leaders, and other public service organizations. Lindsey Grad, who will be a third-year law student this fall, is working in Liberia. Her projects include an analysis of Liberia’s work on the Poverty Reduction Strategy, a look at rural land reform in relation to timber and mining laws, and working with local media and government on the Charles Taylor trial.
Other students are working locally and nationally in attorney general offices, for legal assistance programs, with defender associations and non-profit organizations. Even in traditional doctrinal classes, faculty work to make the subject practical through experience.
“The challenge is for non-clinical law faculty to make their classroom content experiential. What do you with a 90-student contracts class?” said Prof. Anita Ramasastry. To address that challenge, Ramasastry created a workbook, Contracts in Action, which contains “real life” examples and exercises, including one where students are to review their cell phone and/or credit card contracts and discuss the terms with the companies themselves.
“Students call their cell phone company and discuss the arbitration and termination clauses and realize that, especially in contracts, there is only so much the law can do,” said Ramasastry. “It’s hard to get that point across in the classroom — the students actually have to go out and explore for themselves.”
Ramasastry herself understands the importance of experiential education. While the opportunities for her at Harvard Law School were varied, she often found what she called a “strong disconnect between doctrine and the other opportunities” in clinical law and volunteer experiences. One of the reasons she was looking forward to teaching at UW was its “robust clinical program,” added to the small student body, meaning almost every student would have an opportunity to have some sort of experience.
“UW is unique because it provides a hands-on learning experience to almost every student,” she said. “I think those experiences are wonderful because so many law students across the country graduate without any exposure to law in the real world.”
Shari Ireton is the public and information outreach officer at the UW School of Law.
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