Gina Clayton, left, and Crystalee Crain prepare for an Essie Justice Group session for women with loved ones behind bars. Clayton is one of three recipients of 2014 seed grants from Harvard’s Public Service Venture Fund.

For Alec Karakatsanis and Phil Telfeyan winning cases means getting justice for clients unable to fight for themselves. Clients like the hundreds of people locked up in a Montgomery, Ala., jail because they were too poor to pay their traffic tickets.

Equal Justice Under Law, the organization founded by the two Harvard Law alums to provide pro bono legal services, filed a federal lawsuit in March arguing that Montgomery’s system of requiring people who couldn’t pay fines to sit out their debts behind bars at a rate of $50 a day was unconstitutional.

In May, a federal judge barred the city from jailing three Equal Justice clients on that ground, and Montgomery subsequently released dozens of inmates incarcerated for the same reason.

Without the seed grant that Karakatsanis and Telfeyan won from Harvard Law’s Public Service Venture Fund in 2013, some of those inmates might still be in jail. The two were the first to benefit from a program designed to help Harvard Law graduates found startups that target unmet legal needs at a time when other sources of funding were drastically reduced by a recession and years of slower economic growth. Continue reading →

From kindergarten through graduate-degree programs, millions of U.S. students went back to school in September. So did Lawdragon Campus.

We joined pre-law advisers in the Midwest and the South who visited six of the 200-plus American Bar Association-accredited law schools in the United States, rubbing shoulders with members of an entering class that likely continued to shrink on a nationwide basis this year, though initial enrollment tallies aren’t yet available. Continue reading →

Concordia University School of Law is vying to attain national certification by the end of the 2014-15 academic year so that its first class of students, slated to graduate in the spring, can take the bar exam afterward.

One of just two Idaho law schools, Concordia opened in the fall of 2012. Should it miss its goal for provisional approval from the American Bar Association’s government-designated accrediting agency for law schools, the licensing process for students nearing graduation becomes more complex and potentially more expensive. Continue reading →

The killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in 2012 ignited a political firestorm about how well the U.S. protects its personnel, from diplomats to soldiers, serving in dangerous environments abroad.

At Golden Gate University’s law school, it was the genesis of a different movement: supporting veterans who had already completed their military service. The effort begun by Dean Rachel Van Cleave led to the creation of the Veterans Legal Advocacy Center, which brings together a variety of programs to assist veterans pursuing careers in the law and now includes a clinic in which students help veterans obtain health benefits they’re unable to get on their own. Continue reading →

Michigan Innocence Clinic staff attorney Caitlin Plummer and then-law student A.J. Dixon talk with TV reporters about the Jamie Peterson case. Photo courtesy of University of Michigan Law School.

Almost two decades ago, a 21-year-old high school dropout named Jamie Peterson confessed to the brutal rape and murder of a Michigan grandmother whose body had been discovered in the trunk of her car. He got most of the details wrong. Continue reading →

The lobby of the new Sumner Redstone building at Boston University School of Law wraps around the exterior of the old law tower, above. The school will begin teaching classes, including the Lawyering Lab, in the new building this fall.

The scenes are pure fiction: A Navy lawyer played by Tom Cruise provoking Jack Nicholson’s ruthless Marine colonel into self-incrimination in “A Few Good Men.”

Julianna Margulies as Chicago attorney Alice Florrek, “The Good Wife,” discrediting witnesses for the opposition with a few well-chosen questions.

Raymond Burr winning virtually every one of his cases in a 1960s black-and-white portrayal of Perry Mason.

But in these cases, art has manipulated life as well as imitated it. Such dramatizations have given thousands of prospective lawyers their first glimpse into the legal profession, enhancing its allure by what the directors show – the drama – and what they leave out – the hours of research and paperwork. Continue reading →