Miscellaneous

3Ls at W&L

By Anne Skove, Esq.

Drive to New Orleans for Mardi Gras? Collect ding letters? Worry about your loan-fraught future? What did you do during your third year of law school?

At W&L Law, 3Ls will spend their time learning something. Long a leader in clinical programs (how many other law schools take black lung cases?), everybody's third year will now consist of a third-year practicum course.

3Ls will have their choice of practicum courses dealing with international law, climate change, business planning, campus and the constitution, wealth transfer planning, and advanced family law. We assume that the stellar current clinics* (black lung, community legal practice clinic, clerkship program, externships, prosecutors, and VC3) courses will remain.

See Washington and Lee School of Law Announces Dramatic Third Year Reform, press release (March 10, 2008).

Full disclosure: the now-defunct mental health law clinic was our former "office." If we sound overzealous, it's because we know how great these clinics are -- for students and clients.

*If anyone is wondering what ever happened to the late, great Groot's Alderson clinic, it was disbanded after the feds tried to make the program promise it would never sue the prison on behalf of its inmate clients. Unwilling to forgo ethics for access, the school had to shut down the program. Too bad for Martha Stewart, she could have benefitted from their skills.

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on March 22, 2008 (boomark / email).