Faculty

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING Hands-on experience is one of the keys to leaving law school ready to practice.

Memphis Law’s Experiential Learning Program, consisting of our legal clinics and externship program, helps our students do more than just learn the law. It provides a unique blend of legal advocacy, hands-on training and intensive learning.

From students working with the city to remove blighted properties throughout Memphis, to partnerships that allow children and families to find legal solutions to medical problems and even a policy lab designed to help students examine and influence the law itself, Memphis Law is invested in broadening our students’ educational experience in innovative new ways.

These unique real-world learning opportunities are still one of our great strengths at Memphis Law, no matter what the health crisis may bring. Our innovative experiential learning program and location have allowed us to build relationships and partnerships for years, which we could not have done anywhere else. And in times like these, our students are now on the front lines of learning how to practice in whatever situation and environments arise as a result of the impact COVID-19 has on the changing legal world. Our students are working alongside seasoned legal veterans in our legal clinics

and externship programs as they learn how to provide quality legal services to clients via a variety of new means. We could not do this without our years of strong partnerships and experience as a result of our location in Memphis and the legal community.

These real-world educational opportunities prepare students for success after law school like nothing else can.

“My externships gave me an opportunity to build a positive relationship and reputation with various members of the legal community. In many regards the experience, knowledge, skills, reputation and relationships that were fostered through these externships were significant in making me a desirable applicant for my federal judicial clerkship.”

– Devon Muse, (JD ‘17)

69 CASES

500 LAWSUITS

100+ COURT APPEARANCES

Student attorneys in the Neighborhood Preservation Clinic filed 69 new cases seeking to abate the nuisance condition of badly neglected, vacant and abandoned properties throughout the City of Memphis. Collectively, clinic students represented the City of Memphis in more than 500 Tennessee Neighborhood Preservation Act lawsuits and made more than 100 appearances before the Shelby County Environmental Court in 2019-20.

60+ CASES

The MLP Clinic represented children and families in more than 60 cases last year in a variety of settings, such as Housing, Insurance, Education, Family Stability and more. Hundreds of clients have been helped by the MLP Clinic in the last few years alone.

22 APPEALS

Students in the Housing Adjudication Clinic presided over 22 appeals in 2020.

63 SENIOR CITIZENS

102 CASES

Students in the Elder Law Clinic handled 102 cases for 63 individual seniors in 2019-20.

NPC students in action

CLINICS

Neighborhood Preservation Clinic

The University of Memphis Neighborhood Preservation Clinic represents the City of Memphis in public nuisance lawsuits seeking recourse against the owners of badly neglected, vacant and abandoned properties. Clinic students investigate property ownership and conditions; communicate with field code enforcement professionals; and research, prepare and file civil cases alleging claims arising under the Tennessee Neighborhood Preservation Act.

Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic

Through a first-of-its-kind collaboration with Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital and Memphis Area Legal Services, our Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic (MLP Clinic) allows Memphis Law students to represent low-income pediatric patients and their families at Le Bonheur. This gives them the unique opportunity to address the legal and social issues that impact child and family health through direct legal services, education and systemic advocacy.

Housing Adjudication Clinic

The University of Memphis Housing Adjudication Clinic presents students with the unique opportunity to study law and lawyering from the standpoint of the administrative law judge rather than that of direct client representative. Students are assigned to investigate, research, hear, adjudicate and issue written opinions ruling on administrative appeals involving participants in the Memphis Housing Authority's Housing Choice Voucher Program, while also being exposed to federal fair housing law and procedure.

Elder Law Clinic

This clinic gives student attorneys the unique opportunity to represent senior citizens across a broad range of areas, including consumer protection, financial exploitation, conservatorship, realworld property issues, grandparent adoption, healthcare, social security and wills and advanced directives.

Mediation Clinic

Guided by one of the city’s top Rule 31 Listed Mediators and Tennessee Supreme Court Approved Rule 31 Trainer, students in the Mediation Clinic study mediation from the inside out, analyzing in detail the communicative, strategic and ethical dimensions of specific interventions that mediators make in the context of particular cases.

This clinic primarily focuses on the students as the mediators, but the students also are asked to consider the issues from other points of view: as the disputant, as an attorney representing a client in mediation and in the capacity of advising an organizational client about dispute resolution options.