CUA Cover Winter 2004 final (Page 2) - Columbus School of Law

The most recent rankings of America’s bestgraduate schools from U.S. News & World Reportpegged CUA law school’s clinical programs at 13thnationally, due in no small measure to thestrength and growing recognition of itssubset externship program.is the author (with CUA colleaguesWortham, Lisa Lerman, LuciaSilecchia, Stacy Brustin, MargaretBarry, Georgia Niedzielko andProfessor Liz Ryan Cole of VermontLaw School) of Learning fromPractice: A Professional DevelopmentText for Legal Externs (West Group1998). Today, the book is widelyacknowledged as the definitive text inits field. Professor Ogilvy is also theowner of two listservs related to clinicallegal education, “Lawclinic,” hostedby Washburn University Schoolof Law; and “Lextern,” which is devotedto discussion of issues related tolegal externship programs and ishosted by The Catholic Universityof America.Clinical education programs haveexisted for decades in the UnitedStates. Yet, the history of their evolutionhas been a story known to few.Like the WPA historians of the 1930s,who fanned across the nation torecord and archive the personal recollectionsof thousands of Americansinto a sort of national oral history,Professor Ogilvy has set about preservingthe infancy of his own chosenfield in a similar oral history project.Patiently and methodically interviewingthe pioneers of the field, he hasassembled a vast array of stories andreminisces into a first-of-its-kind documentaryfilm, AnOral History ofClinical Legal Education:Part One,Seeds of Change.Further installmentsare planned.Professor Ogilvy’s passion fordelineating the history of clinical legaleducation is not the lonely quest of anintellectual Don Quixote. On the contrary,the Columbus School of Lawsupports the mission in a most concreteway. In the fall of 2002, itsJudge Kathryn J. DuFour Law Libraryagreed to permanently house the firstnational archive of materials and informationrelating to the subject. Thelargest assembly of such materials inone place, the new archive collects,catalogs, preserves and makes availableto researchers a treasure trove ofitems that shed light on the earlybeginnings of clinical legal education.Scholars can find videotapes, photographs,newspaper clippings, teachermaterials and other sources of information,most of which will eventuallybe accessible online.If you build it, they will come,preached a popular baseball movie. Itcertainly appears true of success inthe field of legal externships. CUA lawschool’s mastery of the subject is acrowd pleaser and a major draw. Atwo-day conference hosted by theschool in early March 2003 drewmore than 125 participants frommore than 75 law schools around theworld. “Externships: Learning FromPractice” lured attendees from China,Hungary and Montenegro. Forty-fivespeakers shared their knowledge of awide range of issues facing legalexterns everywhere. Topics included:Getting Unstuck — How to ThinkCreatively; Confidentiality; and TheCare and Feeding of Mentors. Areprise of the first teaching conferencedevoted entirely to legalexternship pedagogy and held in1998, this conference was, like itsforebear, a smashing success.Most good law programs offerstudents the opportunity for somereal life, hands-on lawyering beforethey graduate. The lucky advantagefor the Columbus School of Lawstudent is that such externships donot just nudge them out the classroomdoor with a pat on the back; theextern program itself is run by expertsand is supported by the entire institution.The results speak for themselves.Honored by national rankingsand widely respected among fellowlaw schools, the clinical legaleducation program at The CatholicUniversity of America, and its externshipprogram in particular, demonstrateyet again that whether you arerunning an externship program or participatingin one, there is no substitutefor experience.© 2003 ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved.This article is reprinted with permission fromLegal Times, a publication of AmericanLawyer Media. 1-800-933-4317*subscriptions@legaltimes.com *www.legaltimes.biz.Winter 2004 / C UALAWYER 33