University of Wisconsin Law School was named one of the nation’s best law schools for practical training, ranking third in a recent report by the National Jurist magazine.
James Peterson ‘98 filled the long-vacant federal judge position after the US Senate confirmed him for the job last spring. The Senate voted 70-24 to make Peterson the next judge in US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, with both Wisconsin senators in favor.
“My law degree was a fulfillment of a lifelong dream … When I was four, I wanted to be president of the United States. And don’t count me out.”
— Shirley Abrahamson ’62
2014 Commencement speaker
Two Law School alumni, Jeff Whitney ‘97 and Adisa Bakari ‘98, represented former Badger James White during the NFL draft. White plays for the New England Patriots.
The Immigrant Justice Clinic—along with its partner, the Community Immigration Law Center — has won a 2014 UW-Madison Community-University Partnership Award. The award is given annually to campus and community partners working together to address critical public issues. The clinic has represented more than seventy clients from twenty countries since opening its doors in 2012.
A Wisconsin Innocence Project client whose murder conviction was overturned four years ago received compensation from the state this summer when Governor Scott Walker signed Assembly Bill 290 into law. The new law authorizes payment of $90,000 to Robert Lee Stinson for wrongful imprisonment. Stinson served twenty-three years of a life sentence for first-degree murder, but he was exonerated in 2009 after Wisconsin Innocence Project attorneys and students used DNA evidence to prove his innocence.
Professor Alexandra Huneeus was elected to the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law, the world’s leading peer-reviewed international law journal.
A new book by Professor Mitra Sharafi tells the story of how one ethno-religious minority used litigation, lobbying, and legislation to reap collective gains on its own behalf. “My book is an example of using law in the extreme,” says Sharafi, the author of Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia: Parsi Legal Culture, 1772–1947. “It’s about how the Parsis in British India got it together legally and got lots done.”