Duke Law Clinics provide students an excellent forum in which to sharpen their legal skills, increase their knowledge of substantive areas of the law, and, of course, provide much-needed legal services to real clients. Clinic work includes representing AIDS patients in planning for custody of their children and other end-of-life matters; representing children before school boards after they have been expelled; drafting legal memoranda for government officials from foreign countries; assisting non-profit organizations in community development projects; and representing death row inmates in their last appeals for relief.
In addition to the Clinics, Duke Law offers a number of substantive courses with clinical components. These courses allow students to immerse themselves in the study of a particular subject and then apply their knowledge in a practice setting or in a simulated experience.
"Any great law school has to have a terrific blend of conventional academic curriculum that teaches students to think critically, as well as courses that offer them hands-on opportunities to apply what they have learned academically in a supervised setting, so that when they leave the school they can both think critically and have some facility with handling real-world problems. Experiential learning is all about piecing the two together and offering students an essential opportunity to develop skills they can bring into any future practice." Dean Katharine T. Bartlett