Clinical Education Program

Washington University School of Law is committed to educating tomorrow's leaders by providing our students with the best legal education. Our award-winning Clinical Education Program, ranked fifth in the Nation by U.S. News and World Report in 2009, provides students with the opportunities to learn professional skills and values by working in the real world with clients, attorneys, judges, and legislators. Through our program, law students assist indigent and low-income clients in juvenile justice, child welfare, housing, civil rights, environmental, community health, criminal defense, and intellectual property matters. With twelve distinct clinics, including one based in Washington, D.C., our students have an unparalleled opportunity to hone their skills as future practitioners and to help increase access to justice.

Clinical courses are demanding, rigorous, and exhilarating, providing students with real-world substantive, procedural and ethical challenges. In their role as lawyers, clinic students learn problem solving, judgment, advocacy, communication, collaboration, ethics, and the relationship between law, facts, and evidence -- under the tutelage of experienced faculty mentors -- with teacher-student ratios usually as low as 1:8.

Clinical courses not only help prepare creative, competent, and ethical practitioners; clinics also provide high quality legal services for under-represented individuals and groups in the community. Clinics introduce students to public interest lawyering and professional responsibility, inspiring tomorrow's attorneys to work for justice in their professional lives.

Recognizing that acquiring professional skills and values in a real world context is an essential component of legal education, Washington University School of Law guarantees every interested student at least one clinical opportunity during his or her second or third year of law school. Approximately 60% of our graduates, significantly higher than the national average, enroll in one or more of our twelve clinical courses.