CaseArc

We use an integrated approach to educating our students for professional readiness because we believe they cannot fully grasp and help resolve complex legal issues, problems and practices until they do them. That’s why we combine the teaching of legal theory and doctrine, lawyering skills and professional values in a variety of settings in which you observe, assume and examine the professional roles of lawyers.

The CaseArc Integrated Lawyering Skills Program has revolutionized the way we teach law students. It brings together legal theory and fundamental practice skills with traditional classroom methods. The program puts you in the role of a practicing lawyer and leaves you with the necessary skills, knowledge and professionalism to enter the legal world.

CaseArc provides a four semester series of classes in the first and second years, progressing from basic legal research and writing to complete lawyering skills. You will research and write memos and briefs, interview and counsel clients, draft and negotiate contracts and experience how lawyers make deals happen, solve legal problems, give presentations to courts, and negotiate criminal or civil settlements. All of these classes are taught by lawyers with a decade or more of experience, many of whom have left partnerships in prestigious firms to dedicate their careers to serving you.

The final course in the CaseArc sequence puts you directly in the lawyer’s role, exploring issues of ethics and judgment while engaging you in professional formation in the context of a simulated legal problem.

The Milton A. Kramer Law Clinic puts your lawyering skills to work representing real clients in civil, criminal and business matters. You’ll handle a broad range of legal matters: consumer issues (such as deceptive sales practices and predatory lending), mediation, elder and disability law (encompassing social security and public benefits), and criminal misdemeanors (such as petty theft, DUI, and domestic violence.) Because students in our clinics have already had four semesters of lawyering experience, they pretty much run the show, with the gentle guidance of a world-class clinical faculty.

We are the only academic institution in the world that provides research assistance to all of the world's international criminal tribunals.

Since 2002, our War Crimes Research Lab has been providing the tribunals with pro bono legal research assistance on some of the most complex, hard to research, and time consuming issues that they face. In this Lab, under the supervision of our faculty, students research and write memoranda for the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Kenya Truth Commission, the Kenya Piracy Court, the Uganda High Court War Crimes Division, the International Co-Prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and the Prosecutor of the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

This past year, our research memos have been used in the Charles Taylor trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Radavan Karadzic trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the Duch trial at the Cambodia Genocide Tribunal.

Based on our alumni and faculty connections, we have developed a unique course in which our students learn about national security law, law of the sea, and international criminal law while preparing legal research memoranda on some of the most complex and challenging issues.

We are the only law school that offers a course where students have the opportunity to receive experience working on cutting edge national security law-related legal research projects assigned by the U.S. Coast Guard, Air Force, Army, and DoD Office of Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions. We have one of the country's foremost national security law programs, and this Lab is the centerpiece of the program.

In this lab, students, under the supervision of experts in the field, prepare a substantial scholarly memorandum for a national security-related government agency. In doing so, they hone their research, analysis, and writing skills, which will make them better attorneys.

The Death Penalty Lab provides students with the opportunity to work directly on capital cases at all stages of litigation from trial through clemency.

They experience the nuances and complexities of death penalty law, and work both with experienced faculty and outside practitioners. Our students have worked on four U.S. Supreme Court cases.

This is one of the few, if only, death penalty experiential programs in which the students are directly involved in capital cases. Although the Lab does not do direct representation, the students are integrated into the defense team.

Our Immigration Law Practicum offers students the chance to work on actual asylum and refugee cases with real clients. The work includes writing submissions and briefs for proceedings on human rights issues before the federal Immigration Court, which is based in Cleveland. The experience culminates with a simulated hearing in which the students' present arguments, followed by a trip to the Court to watch their Professor, an experienced immigration attorney, present the actual case. Our students and faculty have prevented the deportation of several refugees in the past year.

Our U.S. Attorney Civil Externship offers students the opportunity to work in the prestigious U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio. The students work on cases pending in the civil division of the office, and assist the attorneys in preparing research memoranda, motions and briefs, discovery materials, as well as other litigation documents. The program gives students a detailed look at the inner workings of an important federal law enforcement agency. With its broad array of case types and subject matter, it provides an important introduction to municipal law practice.

Our faculty was one of the first in the world to establish an International Tribunal Externship Program where students have the opportunity to undertake a semester-long internship at one of the five international criminal tribunals for a full semester of academic credit. More of our law students have interned at the international criminal tribunals than from any other law school.

This past year, we have placed our students in externships with the International Criminal Court, the Cambodia Tribunal, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

The Externship gives the student the chance to serve as a junior member of the prosecution or defense team, or as an adviser to the judges of an international tribunal. Students get to work with attorneys from other countries from around the world on legal matters that will have an impact on one of the world's most important trials.

In this Externship, students get to assist with all aspects of an international criminal case, from investigation to trial to appeal. In doing so, they hone their research, analysis, and writing skills, which will make them better attorneys.

The City Law Externship offers students the opportunity to work in a large urban municipal law department alongside experienced attorneys. Students can participate in the work at the City Prosecutor's office by assisting in the preparation and presentation of misdemeanors.

Seeing the reality of day to day municipal law practice informs their awareness of the necessary balance between academic legal theory and doctrine and practical reality which is critical to effective lawyering.