CaseArc

We use an integrated approach to educating you for professional readiness because we believe you cannot fully grasp and resolve complex legal problems until you do them. That’s why we combine legal theory and doctrine, lawyering skills, and professional values in a variety of settings put you in the lawyer's role.

The CaseArc Integrated Lawyering Skills Program has revolutionized the way we teach you. It brings together legal theory and fundamental practice skills with traditional classroom methods.

CaseArc is a four semester series of classes in the first and second years. You will research and write memos and briefs, interview and counsel clients, draft and negotiate contracts and make deals, and give advice to clients and presentations to courts. 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.

You will represent real clients in the Milton A. Kramer Law Clinic. You’ll have your choice of consumer fraud, mediation, elder and disability law, and criminal misdemeanors. You and your classmates pretty much run the show, with the gentle guidance of a nationally ranked clinical faculty.

We are the only academic institution in the world that provides research assistance to all of the world's international criminal tribunals. Our War Crimes Research Lab was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005

We provide the tribunals with pro bono legal research assistance on some of the most complex and hard to research issues they face. You will 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 alone, students' work has been used in the Charles Taylor trial, the Radavan Karadzic trial, and the Duch trial.

Our National Security Lab has you working on 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 works for the U.S. Coast Guard, Air Force, Army, and the Department of Defense Office of Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions.

The Death Penalty Lab gives you the chance to work directly on capital cases at all stages of litigation, from trial through clemency.

You will 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.

Few, if any, law schools off a similar program.

Our Immigration Law Practicum offers you the chance to work on asylum and refugee cases with real clients. You will work on human rights cases before the federal Cleveland-based Immigration Court. The practicum ends with a simulated hearing in which you present arguments, followed by a trip to the Court to watch your professor, an experienced immigration attorney, present the actual case. Students in this practicum have prevented the deportation of several refugees in the past year.

In our public sector externships you will perform legal work at a wide variety of federal, state, or local government agencies or courts. Depending on your placement, you might work on civil or criminal litigation at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio, criminal litigation at a local prosecutor or public defender, in-depth research and writing in the chambers of a federal judge, regulatory enforcement issues for various federal agencies, or in a large urban municipal law department. We offer at least twenty different public sector placement sites with guaranteed spots during the Fall, Spring, or Summer semesters.

Whether you are interested in direct-client services at a legal services organization, in-house legal work at a non-profit organization, or other public policy work, we have a non-profit placement to fit your interests. Assist attorneys at the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, work in the in-house legal department of a hospital, or experience the general counsel’s office of a non-profit organization in one of our non-profit externships.

Our private sector externships offer you the opportunity to work in an in-house counsel’s office. Work alongside a general counsel and other in-house attorneys and gain experience in drafting corporate documents, strategic thinking, negotiating, counseling, litigation, governance, and compliance.

Our Externship Program will help you to identify a full time, semester-long opportunity at a domestic government or non-profit organization outside of Cleveland for a full semester of academic credit. You will get in-depth hands-on experience and mentoring, advance your career development, and gain new skills in an area of law that is clearly related to your long-term academic or career goals.

Have the chance 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.

You will serve as a junior member of the prosecution or defense team, or as an adviser to the judges of an international tribunal. You will live in Europe or Africa and work with lawyers from around the world.

This past year, our students have worked 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.