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Building the Future of the Legal Profession | AI and Technology in Legal Education | Opening Doors to the Profession | Reimagining the JD | Building the Bar
The Clinic as Classroom
Experiential Learning and Real-World Impact
Gaining a legal education from classroom lectures only goes so far—the realities of practice involve dealing with people, in complex situations, that can be unpredictable and change quickly. The following honorees understand that inherently.
Through clinics, fellowships, and hands-on programs that place students in real legal cases, real courtrooms, and real moments of consequence—serving communities while developing the skills and judgment that no casebook can fully convey—these law schools are preparing their students to be successful from day one after graduation.
Suffolk University Law School’s Legal Innovation & Technology Center and its LIT Lab have built something genuinely unique: a law school clinic whose clients are not individuals but courts, legal aid organizations, and tribal entities. Founded in 2017, the LIT Lab pairs law students with practitioner-faculty to break down complicated laws, write code, and build guided online interview tools that help unrepresented litigants file restraining order applications, navigate eviction appeals, or access military benefits.
The Lab’s flagship Document Assembly Line, an open-source system supported by State Justice Institute funding, has partnered with more than 10 states. A mobile-friendly tool to help Massachusetts residents seal eligible eviction records—launched in May 2025—produced more than 3,200 filings in its first year, representing roughly half of the total statewide volume. Suffolk Law has been named the number one legal tech program in the country by National Jurist on multiple occasions.
California Western School of Law’s Innocence and Justice Clinic (IJC), founded in 1999 as one of the oldest innocence clinics in the country, has been involved in the release or exoneration of 50 wrongfully convicted or unjustly incarcerated individuals.
But its impact extends well beyond individual cases. The Clinic has been instrumental in changing California law related to preserving evidence, litigating innocence claims, and compensating exonerees—including supporting the Juvenile Custodial Interrogations Reform Bill, which prohibits law enforcement from using deception, false threats, and psychologically manipulative tactics on young suspects.
Students commit to a year-long program during which they identify, investigate, and litigate claims of actual innocence, working directly with clients under close supervision. The Clinic’s dedicated workspace makes a deliberate educational statement. It is decorated with art by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated artists, reminding students of the resilience and humanity of the clients they serve.
Rutgers Law School offers recent graduates something that is truly innovative: a one-year post-graduate residency program modeled on medical school residencies, through Rutgers Law Associates (RLA). Fellows work full-time under close supervision at a boutique firm operating at the law school in both Newark and Camden, handling divorce, custody, bankruptcy, employment discrimination, immigration, mental health law, and more.
Since 2014, RLA has served more than 1,600 low- and moderate-income clients, garnered more than $2.2 million in grants, and provided more than 150,000 hours of pro bono or low bono legal service. Of the 100 program completers to date, 97 were employed within a month of graduating.
The University of San Diego School of Law’s Housing Rights Clinic and its Eviction Negotiation Program (ENP) have built a model of courthouse-based advocacy that expands legal aid capacity in ways traditional structures cannot match. Rather than the one-attorney-per-client model, the ENP connects tenants with legal counsel on the day of their eviction trial—immediate, on-the-spot advocacy at the courthouse when it matters most.
In 2025 alone, the combined programs assisted 153 households: 47 families remained in their homes, 71 secured additional time to relocate without immediate displacement, and students helped save tenants more than $523,000 in claimed housing debt. Traditional legal aid models may assist approximately 100 households per attorney annually; the ENP model is projected to nearly double that reach.
Students develop advanced litigation, negotiation, and client counseling skills in real-time, high-stakes environments while serving San Diego’s most vulnerable residents.
