Alumni Magazine for the University of Wisconsin Law School
Cecelia Klingele, on judges using software that measures criminal defendants’ risk of reoffending in their sentencing decisions: “We know that on average, these algorithmic tools tend to make better risk predictions than people do. People tend to overestimate risk. And so these can be a nice check against those natural intuitive biases that we have …
Six UW Law students spent spring break providing pro bono legal services for immigrants apprehended at the US–Mexico border. The immigrants are women and children who came to the United States seeking protection from violence in their home countries. By the time they arrived at the federal detention center in Dilley, Texas, where they are …
John Steuart Curry’s iconic mural, “The Freeing of the Slaves,” has provided quiet inspiration to generations of University of Wisconsin law students. The mural, which dominates the Law Library’s Quarles & Brady Reading Room, turns 75 this year. Completed in July 1942, the mural was commissioned to adorn the “new” Law Library reading room built …
The Supreme Court will decide whether Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature violated the Constitution by redrawing voter district maps that were unfairly partisan. The outcome could shape elections throughout the country. Professor Bill Whitford is the named plaintiff in the US Supreme Court case Gill v. Whitford. Widely considered the most important gerrymandering case in decades, it …
Professor Keith Findley and Wisconsin Innocence Project exoneree Jarrett Adams were featured on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt for their work to free the wrongfully convicted. To watch the segment, visit NBC’s website. It’s Official: Members of UW Law’s graduating class of 2017 are admitted to practice the law during the June swearing-in …
See also “Mississippi Learning: The Education of Geraldine Hines ’71“ 1947 Born in the Mississippi Delta on October 29, 1947, Geraldine Hines knew early on she’d make a career of social justice lawyering. “Seeing what happened to my parents, what happened to people around me, the indignities we all faced — having to enter through …
On the Reasons Why People Falsely Confess “The most prominent is simply that people are subjected to psychologically coercive, very intensive interrogation tactics. To make it stop or secure the best outcome that they possibly can, they’re led to believe that they should just confess, even though they didn’t do it.” KEITH FINDLEY, WISCONSIN PUBLIC …
The Neighborhood Law Clinic (NLC) received honorable mention from the Clinical Legal Education Association, a national group of clinical law teachers, for excellence in delivering public interest legal services. Marsha Mansfield, who directs the Law School’s Economic Justice Institute, nominated the NLC for the honor. She commends clinic students, along with clinic director Mitch, for …
A digital archive launched this fall at UW Law Library sheds light on the legal aspects of the world’s worst industrial disaster. According to Marc Galanter, UW professor emeritus of law and South Asian studies, more than 20,000 people died and hundreds of thousands more were injured as a result of the 1984 chemical leak …
Nearly 300 veterans have been offered free legal assistance since UW Law School started its Veterans Law Center (VLC) in November 2012. Volunteer attorneys, along with paralegals and law students, provide brief legal advice, information, and referrals on a variety of civil legal matters. Laura Smythe wants to help more. “There’s a huge unmet need,” …