Discovery Winter 2020 % Volume 6, No. 1
the newsletter from washington and lee university school of law
Experiential Education Today at W&L Law More than a decade ago, W&L Law announced a major curriculum reform, greatly expanding the School’s practice-based offerings — making national headlines in the process. Today, experiential education remains a key feature of the curriculum, and while W&L is hardly alone in offering such course work, the School remains a national leader in this area. Students take 18 experiential credits while in law school, far outpacing the amount now required by the bar associations in many jurisdictions. Of course, W&L’s practice-focused curriculum has evolved over the years in important ways. For
example, students can now begin taking experiential credits in their second year. In addition to permitting students access to these exciting offerings earlier in their law school careers, this change creates more flexibility in their schedules to take classes that complement their career objectives in their third year. Consistent with the introduction of greater flexibility, students now choose between the litigation and transactional immersion classes, two-week
intensive courses that are held at the beginning of the third year before other classes start. Clinics, externships and practice-based classes known as practicums remain at the heart of the experiential curriculum, and those opportunities have developed in unique ways in recent years. Below is a quick look at three such classes, where students are able to enhance their legal practice experience before starting their careers.
TIME SERVED: VIRGINIA CAPITAL CASE CLEARINGHOUSE The Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse, or VC3, has been a fixture of W&L’s clinical offerings for decades. While the VC3 remains a locus of research and support for capital defense attorneys, clinic director David Bruck and his students have in recent years spearheaded a new focus for the clinic — helping elderly and long-serving Virginia prison inmates petition for parole.
of effectively applying the 1995 abolition of parole retroactively. This did not succeed as a class action lawsuit. Nearly 2,000 parole-eligible inmates, all middle-aged to elderly and having spent more than 25 years in prison, remain incarcerated. Daniel Carlisle ’19L worked on a parole case during his third year, helping to free a 71-year-old individual who had served more than 31 years in
“It’s a truly unique experience. It’s not like anything else that I’ve experienced interacting with other people, even people who are desperate in their own lives. There’s just nothing quite like being forgotten by society like that — just being locked away.” –Daniel Carlisle ’19L In the 1990s, the state of Virginia eliminated parole for all felony offenders whose crimes were committed after Jan. 1, 1995. While those convicted prior to that date could still be considered for parole, the Virginia parole board released almost no one for decades, prompting a lawsuit that accused the board
prison. Carlisle says the parole process for eligible inmates can be frustrating because the reasoning behind the rejection is often sparse. “They never say, show growth in these areas and come back next year. It just says ‘nature of the crime.’ And [the inmates] don’t know what to do with that.”
Most parole-eligible inmates are serving long sentences for serious crimes, such as kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. But after decades in prison and the process of aging, “the person that committed the crime has often changed completely,” Bruck said. The governor of Virginia recently appointed a new parole board, with instructions to try to do something about the large number of aging inmates who are still lingering. Since then, the rate of release went up somewhat. The clinic has represented around 20 clients since the program’s inception. Cases are assigned to student teams of two. These teams gather documentation about the case, the crime and the prison record before going to see the inmate. After that, the students prepare a written parole packet, including a release plan, which identifies family members and people from the community who will pledge to support the inmate and help them readjust to society once they are released. Once a board hearing is secured, students make a half-hour oral presentation. “It’s a truly unique experience,” Carlisle said. “It’s not like anything else that I’ve experienced interacting with other people, even people who are desperate in their own lives. There’s just nothing quite like being forgotten by society like that — just being locked away.”
DAY (AND NIGHT) AT THE MUSEUM W&L Law students have long worked outside of the School in externships with prosecutors’ offices, judges’ chambers, government agencies and law firms. A newer development is the ability of a select number of students to spend the fall semester of their 3L year in a residential externship outside of Lexington. Most of these students live and work in Washington, D.C., although the School has also secured unique placements with the Delaware Court of the Chancery in Wilmington and the Kraft Group in Boston. The residential program in Washington, D.C., in particular, is valuable for students who wish to work in government or on regulatory matters for a law firm,
but those placements just scratch the surface of the kinds of realpractice experience W&L students can get. Just this semester, students are working at the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, the U.S. EEOC, the National Nuclear Security Administration and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Hannah Cloh ’20L secured a position with the Office of the General Counsel at the Smithsonian Institution. Within her first week on the job, she had seven assignments focusing on issues ranging from torts to intellectual property, and she toured the Phillips Collection with a group of attorneys from her (continued on page 2)
Hannah Cloh ’20L secured a position with the Office of the General Counsel at the Smithsonian Institution.