The clinic has two supervisors – Doug and Katherine – and I had Katherine as my primary supervisor. I got the impression that Katherine is a much more hands-on supervisor in terms of talking about the case and giving feedback. The brief I worked on had a few fairly complex legal issues, and a few of them were on newer areas of the law; she knew the newly-published and forthcoming cases in Michigan extremely well, which was super helpful while writing the brief. The client meeting was also really useful in terms of figuring out how to manage client expectations and review important parts of the case efficiently.
I found the classes themselves less helpful; I would have really appreciated more in-class time to write so that we could ask about issues as they came up. The class was really slow going for the first few weeks, with a lot of establishing basics classes that I didn’t find particularly helpful, and I felt pretty rushed towards the end of it when it came to actually writing the brief. I was also under the impression that there was some uneven distribution of work based on which issue you happened to get – some people’s briefs only turned out to be 10 or so pages, while mine was over 30, which made the deadlines feel a lot tighter.
I’ll also say that this clinic is much more useful if you’re already public-defense or public interest oriented than as a general skills clinic. I took this clinic in hopes of developing some general appellate skills, and I’m not sure how much I felt like it helped; a lot of the clinic is really, really specifically oriented around issues of Michigan law, and the style/approach is also really tailored to criminal defense cases by this particular organization. Similarly, I found the oral argument to be less useful because all of my feedback was about how I should have argued differently as a public defender, rather than generally applicable oral argument advice. Again, I think if you want to be a public defender or public interest person, this is incredibly helpful advice, but as someone who was taking the clinic in hopes of developing more general skills, it was a little less helpful.
Frankly, I also had a lot of moments that were pretty uncomfortable in the way we talked about victims in this class; I understand that zealous advocacy is part of client representations, but I think a lot of the conversations strayed into victim-blaming territory in a way that really wasn’t necessary for developing case theory. Maybe that was just an issue on my part of not realistically setting expectations when enrolling, but if this is something that you’re sensitive to for whatever reason then I think it’s good to have a heads-up, at the very least.
Finally, I’ll note that the curve was a little different this year than in years past – in the past, it was primarily As with a few A-s and one or two B+s; this year they went for a flatter curve, and there were only a few As with all the rest being A-s.
Person #1’s Review:
To the short answer is: you write a brief for a currently incarcerated person in the Michigan prison system. You’re working side by side with SADO attorneys (the clinic profs) who are there to point you in the right direction, but all the research and writing is on you.
A longer answer is:
So we learned a little bit about evidence and crim pro the first few weeks. Neither of those are pre-reqs, and a lot of us (including myself) hadn’t taken either course, so they wanted to give us a working knowledge before giving us cases (which, unlike other clinics, we were assigned a few weeks into the term – I liked this bc it eases you into the clinic experience).
You only work on one case the whole semester, so you really get to sink your teeth into those specific fact patterns, issues, and arguments. If you think you are interested in doing appellate work, or any sort of public defense, this clinic would be perfect for you. At the same time, if you just want to work on your brief writing skills, it is still a great option
You get to pretty much set your own pace for the semester – the profs are really flexible with deadlines
There are no mandatory “office hours” where you have to be at a certain place at a certain time doing clinic work – I pretty much wrote the whole brief at coffee shops (again, I think this is a perk compared to other clinics that have this requirement)
Pretty much all the work is research and brief writing, and we did a mock oral argument later in the semester. You also get to either visit or Skype your client to interview them – that was a really cool experience IMO
Personally, my favorite part was being able to white an entire brief – I really love research and writing.
I’m happy to answer any other questions you have!!
Also I should note that if you have any reservations about working with certain kinds of clients (sex crime convictions etc.), the profs will work with you so that you’re not assigned to a case that you don’t feel comfortable working on.
Person #2’s Review
I had a felony home invasion case, which was the least severe case of the semester. I think everyone else had a murder or a rape case.
As far as work goes, it’s almost entirely research and writing. You’ll read the trial transcript and spot issues, then work from there to develop an appellate brief. There isn’t any court time, but you will get to meet your client at least once. The closest you’ll get to court is a moot court at the end of the semester where you’ll argue your case in front of SADO attorneys which I thought was really fun.
The upside of not going to court, and of having only one client, is that there aren’t office hours, which seriously limits your workload. You have class 3 hours a week, meet with one of the professors for an hour a week, and write your brief.
I really enjoyed the clinic – Kathy and Doug are fun professors and good lawyers to learn from. As a final note, I can’t stress how low stress the clinic is, especially compared to what I’ve heard about some of the other clinics where you’ve got multiple clients who will call you.
Person #3’s Review
I did this clinic in my 2L winter semester. It is supervised by public defenders from Detroit. The case load they can get for students varies each semester. Sometimes they can let each student be in charge of one whole case, but in my year we 12 student worked only on 3 cases. Since all the cases are at the appellate level, apparently they are pretty tough and require a lot of research work.
Overall, I’d say it’s a good experience if you can get a substantive issue of a case to work on, or if you can be in charge of an entire case. It’s good talking point if you want to do litigation or appellate work. I used the appellate brief as writing sample last year and it worked well.
Person #4’s Review
Generally enjoyed the clinic for the writing practice and the exposure to state criminal procedure. The professors (Doug and Katherine) are wonderful people and very smart/dedicated. They bring in some great speakers including judges, exonerated felons, etc. Workload during the semester is fair for 4 credits. You basically just research and write a brief all term – you get one client and work with a partner and each draft a brief, then argue it before other lawyers from the appellate defenders office.
A few complaints: It feels, at times, like just an advanced writing class. They don’t submit your final brief, but sort of mash it up with your partners and then write whatever else they think is needed. So it’s like a pretend clinic? Also, you only meet your client once (at least with ours), the rest is just based on the trial record and discovery. I was hoping for a more “real” experience.
I see from your signature that you’ll be taking it as a first semester 2L. I had taken evidence and both crim pros before doing the clinic. They aren’t required but certainly help. I thought evidence and crim pro 2 were especially helpful (that’s mostly what the issues on appeal are) but you can still take it without, just be willing to do a little extra background work.
I think the decision of which clinic to take also depends on what kind of experience you want – In court? Writing? Lots of client interaction? Lots of credits or fewer credits?
I agree overall with the substance of the other reviews.
Looking back, I would highly recommend taking Evidence and/or Crim Pro II (but Crim Pro II more since you’ll be working with the Michigan rules of evidence which can differ from the federal rules) before taking this course because it makes spotting legal issues in the trial record 1000x easier and make more sense. Without having taking these courses you are kind of going in blind.
Echoing the other reviews, the course is more like a writing course than your typical clinic. You are assigned a criminal case with a partner, you review the trial record, find issues, then write an appellate brief on those issues. You may also get the see your client *like once* but you don’t have any real contact with them. You also do not get to go to court and argue your brief. Like mentioned in another review, appeals take a long time and the supervisors just take both briefs and edit them together, before submitting them to the court. I didn’t even get to see what got submitted on behalf of my client.
Your experience will also differ depending on who your supervisor is. Doug is more relaxed and chill, while Katherine is very meticulous and stringent. This isn’t to say they aren’t both very nice and fun people. I just believe Katherine is harder on the students assigned to her.
Lastly, you get a lot of feedback during the clinic, but I didn’t get any feedback on the final brief I submitted. It would have been nice to get substantive edits. However, this is still a great course to get an excellent writing sample out of. I was able to edit the brief on my own and use it for clerkship applications.
MLaw Prof Reviews
The clinic has two supervisors – Doug and Katherine – and I had Katherine as my primary supervisor. I got the impression that Katherine is a much more hands-on supervisor in terms of talking about the case and giving feedback. The brief I worked on had a few fairly complex legal issues, and a few of them were on newer areas of the law; she knew the newly-published and forthcoming cases in Michigan extremely well, which was super helpful while writing the brief. The client meeting was also really useful in terms of figuring out how to manage client expectations and review important parts of the case efficiently.
I found the classes themselves less helpful; I would have really appreciated more in-class time to write so that we could ask about issues as they came up. The class was really slow going for the first few weeks, with a lot of establishing basics classes that I didn’t find particularly helpful, and I felt pretty rushed towards the end of it when it came to actually writing the brief. I was also under the impression that there was some uneven distribution of work based on which issue you happened to get – some people’s briefs only turned out to be 10 or so pages, while mine was over 30, which made the deadlines feel a lot tighter.
I’ll also say that this clinic is much more useful if you’re already public-defense or public interest oriented than as a general skills clinic. I took this clinic in hopes of developing some general appellate skills, and I’m not sure how much I felt like it helped; a lot of the clinic is really, really specifically oriented around issues of Michigan law, and the style/approach is also really tailored to criminal defense cases by this particular organization. Similarly, I found the oral argument to be less useful because all of my feedback was about how I should have argued differently as a public defender, rather than generally applicable oral argument advice. Again, I think if you want to be a public defender or public interest person, this is incredibly helpful advice, but as someone who was taking the clinic in hopes of developing more general skills, it was a little less helpful.
Frankly, I also had a lot of moments that were pretty uncomfortable in the way we talked about victims in this class; I understand that zealous advocacy is part of client representations, but I think a lot of the conversations strayed into victim-blaming territory in a way that really wasn’t necessary for developing case theory. Maybe that was just an issue on my part of not realistically setting expectations when enrolling, but if this is something that you’re sensitive to for whatever reason then I think it’s good to have a heads-up, at the very least.
Finally, I’ll note that the curve was a little different this year than in years past – in the past, it was primarily As with a few A-s and one or two B+s; this year they went for a flatter curve, and there were only a few As with all the rest being A-s.
Writing to share some older reviews from lawopen:
Person #1’s Review:
To the short answer is: you write a brief for a currently incarcerated person in the Michigan prison system. You’re working side by side with SADO attorneys (the clinic profs) who are there to point you in the right direction, but all the research and writing is on you.
A longer answer is:
So we learned a little bit about evidence and crim pro the first few weeks. Neither of those are pre-reqs, and a lot of us (including myself) hadn’t taken either course, so they wanted to give us a working knowledge before giving us cases (which, unlike other clinics, we were assigned a few weeks into the term – I liked this bc it eases you into the clinic experience).
You only work on one case the whole semester, so you really get to sink your teeth into those specific fact patterns, issues, and arguments. If you think you are interested in doing appellate work, or any sort of public defense, this clinic would be perfect for you. At the same time, if you just want to work on your brief writing skills, it is still a great option
You get to pretty much set your own pace for the semester – the profs are really flexible with deadlines
There are no mandatory “office hours” where you have to be at a certain place at a certain time doing clinic work – I pretty much wrote the whole brief at coffee shops (again, I think this is a perk compared to other clinics that have this requirement)
Pretty much all the work is research and brief writing, and we did a mock oral argument later in the semester. You also get to either visit or Skype your client to interview them – that was a really cool experience IMO
Personally, my favorite part was being able to white an entire brief – I really love research and writing.
I’m happy to answer any other questions you have!!
Also I should note that if you have any reservations about working with certain kinds of clients (sex crime convictions etc.), the profs will work with you so that you’re not assigned to a case that you don’t feel comfortable working on.
Person #2’s Review
I had a felony home invasion case, which was the least severe case of the semester. I think everyone else had a murder or a rape case.
As far as work goes, it’s almost entirely research and writing. You’ll read the trial transcript and spot issues, then work from there to develop an appellate brief. There isn’t any court time, but you will get to meet your client at least once. The closest you’ll get to court is a moot court at the end of the semester where you’ll argue your case in front of SADO attorneys which I thought was really fun.
The upside of not going to court, and of having only one client, is that there aren’t office hours, which seriously limits your workload. You have class 3 hours a week, meet with one of the professors for an hour a week, and write your brief.
I really enjoyed the clinic – Kathy and Doug are fun professors and good lawyers to learn from. As a final note, I can’t stress how low stress the clinic is, especially compared to what I’ve heard about some of the other clinics where you’ve got multiple clients who will call you.
Person #3’s Review
I did this clinic in my 2L winter semester. It is supervised by public defenders from Detroit. The case load they can get for students varies each semester. Sometimes they can let each student be in charge of one whole case, but in my year we 12 student worked only on 3 cases. Since all the cases are at the appellate level, apparently they are pretty tough and require a lot of research work.
Overall, I’d say it’s a good experience if you can get a substantive issue of a case to work on, or if you can be in charge of an entire case. It’s good talking point if you want to do litigation or appellate work. I used the appellate brief as writing sample last year and it worked well.
Person #4’s Review
Generally enjoyed the clinic for the writing practice and the exposure to state criminal procedure. The professors (Doug and Katherine) are wonderful people and very smart/dedicated. They bring in some great speakers including judges, exonerated felons, etc. Workload during the semester is fair for 4 credits. You basically just research and write a brief all term – you get one client and work with a partner and each draft a brief, then argue it before other lawyers from the appellate defenders office.
A few complaints: It feels, at times, like just an advanced writing class. They don’t submit your final brief, but sort of mash it up with your partners and then write whatever else they think is needed. So it’s like a pretend clinic? Also, you only meet your client once (at least with ours), the rest is just based on the trial record and discovery. I was hoping for a more “real” experience.
I see from your signature that you’ll be taking it as a first semester 2L. I had taken evidence and both crim pros before doing the clinic. They aren’t required but certainly help. I thought evidence and crim pro 2 were especially helpful (that’s mostly what the issues on appeal are) but you can still take it without, just be willing to do a little extra background work.
I think the decision of which clinic to take also depends on what kind of experience you want – In court? Writing? Lots of client interaction? Lots of credits or fewer credits?
I agree overall with the substance of the other reviews.
Looking back, I would highly recommend taking Evidence and/or Crim Pro II (but Crim Pro II more since you’ll be working with the Michigan rules of evidence which can differ from the federal rules) before taking this course because it makes spotting legal issues in the trial record 1000x easier and make more sense. Without having taking these courses you are kind of going in blind.
Echoing the other reviews, the course is more like a writing course than your typical clinic. You are assigned a criminal case with a partner, you review the trial record, find issues, then write an appellate brief on those issues. You may also get the see your client *like once* but you don’t have any real contact with them. You also do not get to go to court and argue your brief. Like mentioned in another review, appeals take a long time and the supervisors just take both briefs and edit them together, before submitting them to the court. I didn’t even get to see what got submitted on behalf of my client.
Your experience will also differ depending on who your supervisor is. Doug is more relaxed and chill, while Katherine is very meticulous and stringent. This isn’t to say they aren’t both very nice and fun people. I just believe Katherine is harder on the students assigned to her.
Lastly, you get a lot of feedback during the clinic, but I didn’t get any feedback on the final brief I submitted. It would have been nice to get substantive edits. However, this is still a great course to get an excellent writing sample out of. I was able to edit the brief on my own and use it for clerkship applications.