The School of Law is committed to helping you practice what you learn. Through several outstanding programs—some curricular, some extracurricular, and some co-curricular—our students work, argue, research, write, and practice, often while helping citizens in need. Our approach tightly integrates study, practice, and experience, and it develops great lawyers. See an overview of our clinical programs.

Appellate Advocacy Clinic

The Appellate Advocacy Clinic represents low-income clients in all sorts of appeals, both civil and criminal, and in a variety of appellate courts, including the Fourth Circuit and the Seventh Circuit. Working in pairs, students handle an actual appeal from start to finish, with advice and assistance from their professor, who is counsel of record. Students also travel to Washington, D.C., to observe arguments at the United States Supreme Court.

Child Advocacy Clinic

The Child Advocacy Clinic focuses on the representation of children in three settings: deciding the custody of children in high conflict cases, deciding the custody of children in civil domestic violence actions, and representing children of indigent parents in issues involving the public school system. Students study the various models for representing children – as lawyer advocate, as lawyer guardian ad litem, and as non-lawyer guardian ad litem – and analyze the ethical issues raised in the various settings. Students also study the procedural and substantive law involved in deciding the custody issue in both the family law and the domestic violence settings and in representing children in the educational setting.

Community Law & Business Clinic

The Community Law & Business Clinic is a new clinical education program within the Wake Forest University School of Law which will launch during the spring 2009 semester. CL&BC will provide law and graduate business students with an opportunity to develop skills needed to practice in the increasingly complex legal and regulatory environment they will encounter as professionals. In addition, CL&BC will bring the resources and expertise of Wake Forest University to enhance community development efforts in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County and regionally.

Elder Law Clinic

Responding to the rapid growth of elder law practice, Wake Forest’s School of Law and School of Medicine have created the Elder Law Clinic, a unique service that exposes students to both the legal issues and medical aspects of this practice area.

Innocence & Justice Clinic

The Innocence & Justice Clinic is a new clinical offering at Wake Forest University School of Law that commenced in Spring 2009. The I & J Clinic has its origins in the Innocence Project where Wake Forest student volunteers reviewed and investigated claims of innocence to determine whether DNA evidence existed that could exonerate inmates. The I & J Clinic expanded the mission of the Innocence Project by providing students with the opportunity to review and investigate all types of innocence claims and pursue litigation when appropriate.

Litigation Clinic

Wake Forest School of Law’s Litigation Clinic is our oldest and largest clinic, accommodating 25 students per semester. It began in 1981 as a legal services project. Today, it incorporates the full spectrum of the practice of law. Students are placed with supervising attorneys in offices large and small, public and private, in a wide range of practice areas. We believe we are the only clinic in the country that requires each student to have concurrent civil and criminal law placements. The idea is for students to confront not only issues of property and money but life and liberty, while rounding out a skill set that will serve both the student and their future clients well.

Wake Forest School of Law Program in Washington

The Wake Forest School of Law Program in Washington provides students with the opportunity to spend a semester in practice in the most diverse and vibrant legal environment in the world. The program includes both an externship component and a programmatic initiative that includes conferences, roundtables, symposia, and lectures. Students spend approximately 35 hours per week interning in a government agency or non-governmental organization. In addition, students attend a weekly class session, which explores issues common to the interns.