Type | State university |
---|---|
Established | 1868 |
Dean | Margaret Raymond |
Students | 820 |
Location | Madison, Wisconsin, USA |
Campus | Urban |
Website | law.wisc.edu |
The University of Wisconsin Law School is the professional school for the study of law at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. The law school was founded in 1868.
The law school is located on Bascom Hill, the center of the UW–Madison campus. In 1996, it completed a major renovation project that joined two previous buildings and created a four-story glass atrium. The renovation was recognized by the American Institute of Architects for its innovative design, incorporating modern design into the 150 years of architecture on historic Bascom Hill. In addition to lecture halls and smaller classrooms, the law school contains a fully functional trial courtroom, appellate courtroom, and an extensive law library. The library is noted for the 1942 mural "The Freeing of the Slaves" by John Steuart Curry that dominates the Quarles & Brady Reading Room (also known as the "Old Reading Room").
The University of Wisconsin Law School subscribes to a "law in action" legal philosophy. This philosophy proposes that to truly understand the law, students must not only know the "law on the books", but also study how the law is actually practiced by professionals. The law school's classroom discussions, involvement with other campus departments, scholarship, and clinical practica all emphasize the interplay between law and society.
The University of Wisconsin Law School's flagship journal is the Wisconsin Law Review, which was founded in 1920 and became one of the nation's first entirely student-run law reviews in 1935. Students at the law school also publish two specialty journals: the Wisconsin International Law Journal, established in 1982, and the Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society, a continuation of the Wisconsin Women's Law Journal, established in 1985. A third specialty journal, the Wisconsin Environmental Law Journal, was founded in 1994 but discontinued publication in 2002.
The law school places a great emphasis on its clinical programs, as part of its law-in-action curriculum. The most well-known clinic is the Frank J. Remington Center, named after the late UW law professor Frank J. Remington. The Center runs a variety of programs focused on the practice of criminal law. The largest program in the Center is the Legal Assistance to Institutionalized Persons (LAIP) Project, which provides legal services to inmates incarcerated in Wisconsin. The Center also runs clinics focused on family law, criminal defense, criminal prosecution, criminal appeals, community oriented policing, and an Innocence Project that attempts to reverse judgments against wrongfully convicted defendants. The law school also runs a group of clinics focusing on civil law called the Economic Justice Institute. These clinical offerings include the Neighborhood Law Clinic, which serves underrepresented clients in landlord/tenant, workers' rights, and public benefit disputes; the Family Court Assistance Project; the Immigrant Justice Clinic; and the Consumer Law Clinic. The Center for Patient Partnerships is an interdisciplinary patient advocacy clinical housed in the Law School where students of law, medicine, nursing, social work, pharmacy, public policy etc. serve as advocates for people with life-threatening illnesses as they negotiate the health care system.