Experiential Learning

Brandeis School of Law offers a number of experiential learning opportunities to extend students' experience beyond the classroom. These hands-on opportunities include a clinic that allows students to represent clients directly during Domestic Violence and Interpersonal Protective Order hearings, divorce and housing cases. Another clinic offers students an opportunity to work with University of Louisville College of Business Entrepreneurship MBA students as they launch businesses and compete with other schools.

Brandeis School of Law has a close relationship with the bench and bar in the City of Louisville, providing students with access to attorneys and judges. Externships provide opportunities to work with judges, represent clients, prepare and try cases and more.

Additionally, students must earn credit for public service and skills classes or experiences. They have opportunities to participate on a variety of moot court teams or work with legal publications. They also have an increasing amount of study-abroad opportunities.

All of these options provide Brandeis students with invaluable training beyond a textbook, honing their lawyering skills and preparing them for what's to come after graduation.

Clinics

The Brandeis School of Law offers four clinics for students to gain hands-on legal experiences— The Robert and Sue Ellen Ackerson Law Clinic, the Entrepreneurship Law Clinic, the Trager-Brandeis Elder Law Clinic and the Mediation Clinic.

In the fall of 2017, the Brandeis School of Law opened the Mediation Clinic, which is open to 2Ls and 3Ls who have completed 40 hours of rigorous mediation training. Students come to the clinic as certified mediators ready to work with low-income pro se litigants who have been referred by Jefferson County Family Court judges. Students mediate cases involving divorce, paternity, child custody and post-decree divorce problems. It is the only free mediation service in Louisville.

Externships

The University of Louisville School of Law requires students to complete six credit hours in experiential courses, at least two of which must be earned in Live Client Courses.

Under ABA accreditation standards, an experiential course that counts towards the six credits must be a simulation course, an externship course or a clinic course.

A Live Client Course is an externship course or a clinic course. Live Client Courses sometimes are referred to as "Experiential Live Client" Courses (ELC Courses).

All live client courses require 56 hours of course work per credit hour earned. (E.g., to earn 2, 3 or 4 credits requires a total of 112, 168 or 224 work hours a 14-week semester.) Student schedules and commitments should allow devoting large blocks of time to clinic or field work.