RES IPSA ONLINE • SPRING 2012
COVER STORY:
California Western and Dean Steven Smith
Expanding Clinical Programs: Innovative Programs Impart Practical Skills, Benefit the Community

The STEPPS course provides students with real world, hands-on training in a supervised setting

Few experiences during law school are more valuable than sending students out in the community as soon as possible so they can see how the legal world actually works. During Dean Steve Smith's era, California Western created a number of programs that not only provide that experience, they often serve to improve the community.

Since joining the school, Smith has stressed the importance of pro bono work while equipping students with practical skills they'll need on the job. In their first year, students are encouraged to engage in pro bono work in areas like the Community Law Project. In their second year, all students participate in the STEPPS program, which teaches legal skills, preventive law and problem solving, along with professional responsibility and ethics.

In their third year, nearly 70 percent of students opt for the Clinical Internship Program, which enables them to earn academic credit for legal work in private law offices, courts, corporations, and government agencies. In these settings, students engage in actual legal work, acquiring insights and experiences that will help them launch their careers.

"Other schools do pro bono work and internships, but STEPPS has really become one of the most innovative programs in the country," says Professor Janet Weinstein, director of the internship program, and the force behind STEPPS program. "Because it provides students with real world, hands-on training in all the areas they'll face as lawyers, they're ready to perform in their clinical internships, and when the graduate they actually know how to be lawyers, something you don't see at most law schools. We hear all the time from the legal community that California Western students are among the best-prepared graduates they hire."

Among the high-profile California Western programs that provide a unique learning experience while contributing to society is the California Innocence Project, directed by Professors Justin Brooks and Jan Stiglitz, a 13-year-old effort dedicated to exonerating prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted. CIP reviews more than 2,000 claims of innocence from California inmates each year, nine having been exonerated to date. Students who participate in the year-long clinic work alongside CIP staff attorneys on cases in which there is strong evidence of factual innocence, according to Professor Jan Stiglitz, who created the program with Dean Smith's strong support.

Says Stiglitz, "CIP is a great program on so many levels. Not only are we achieving freedom for innocent people who otherwise might have spent the rest of their lives in prison, we're raising awareness and effecting change in the justice system that will help prevent future wrongful convictions. In addition to providing our students with an incredible educational experience, CIP has become a source of real pride for the entire school and is a powerful recruiting tool. For those of us directly involved, there’s nothing any of us have done professionally that is more rewarding than walking someone out of prison after a lengthy term of incarceration for a crime they did not commit."

BOB ROSS // RES IPSA ONLINE

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