Clinical Law Program & Collaborative Externships

The Clinical Law Program

What's a law school clinic?

In a law school clinic, students receive law-school credit while they represent real clients or mediate real cases. They learn relevant lawyering skills through close supervision by an experienced lawyer/faculty member. Clinics offer students an opportunity to serve the community and reflect on their experience as they become a lawyer.

Clinics at the UWLS

The clinical law program is central to the law school's public service and access to justice efforts. Each year, a variety of clinics offer diverse practice opportunities to law students. Nearly 60% of each JD class enrolls in a clinic. As the world and the legal profession change, law schools must prepare the next generation to be our advocates and leaders. The UW School of law is committed to providing an innovative, student-focused learning environment that prepares our students to become highly skilled lawyers in a globally competitive world. Our UW students gain a strong foundation in legal theory, the skills necessary for success in the changing legal profession, and an awareness of their ethical and public service responsibilities.

Collaborative Externships

What's a Collaborative Externship?

The UW law school offers a wide range of externships, or "field placements." In externships students receive law school credit for performing legal work in a non-profit or government agency. Students are directly supervised by an experienced lawyer in the work setting. In addition, a faculty supervisor guides the students in reflecting on the externship experience.

In addition, we offer specially designed collaborative externships. The law school and one or more community partners together design a special 15-credit immersion externship experience. The collaborative externship is offered each year during the same quarter. A cohort of students participates in special educational activities.

Collaborative Externships at the UWLS

The law school currently offers two collaborative externships, the Olympia Quarter Fellows and the Laurel Rubin Externship Advocacy Project.

Clinics in the News

• Students' work pays off as Juvenile Records Sealing Bill is passed
  Students in the new Legislative Advocacy Clinic drafted, analyzed and lobbied through the legislature a bill sealing some juvenile offender records. (May 5, 2009)
• UW Law Professor Ron Whitener Receives Clinical Legal Education Award
  The UW law school's Director of the Tribal Court Public Defense Clinic and Assistant Professor Ron Whitener '94 has been awarded the M. Shanara Gilbert "Emerging Clinician" Award from the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Clinical Legal Education. (4/1/2009)
• The Clinical Law Program celebrates 30th Anniversary this year - University Week
  Founding Director of the Clinical Law Program Alan Kirtley and current Director Debbie Maranville reflect on teaching clinics as the reflect on 30 years of clinical education at the UW Law School. (1/29/09)
• Innocence Project Receives Gift, Reverses Another Conviction
  On the heels of receiving a generous gift from the RiverStyx Foundation, the Innocence Project Northwest Clinic learned that the clinic secured its 13th conviction reversal.
• Xmas at Walla Walla: innocent man awaits release - Seattle PI
  After four Christmases behind bars for a crime he didn't commit, James Anderson was released just in time to celebrate Christmas 2008 at home after evidence produced by Innocence Project Northwest helped Anderson prove he was in California when the crime was committed in Tacoma.
• New DNA Methods Could Throw More Convictions Into Doubt - Seattle Weekly
  UW's McMurtrie and her team of post-conviction sleuths are assisting several clients in their requests for post-conviction DNA testing. "All we're asking," says McMurtrie, "is that the test be allowed so we can determine . . .innocence or . . . guilt." (1/8/2008)

I use the lessons you taught me every day. 
- Chuck Williams, Civil Clinic Alum, ‘94

Your gift to the Clinical Law Program or a specific Clinic will help maintain this core educational and public-spirited program at the UW School of Law. Give online today >>