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The Case of a Lifetime

As a second year law student, Abbe Smith took on a particularly tough case her first day at NYU's prison law clinic back in 1980. Patsy Kelly Jarrett was facing a life sentence for a 1973 robbery and murder. She was convicted on the strength of a single shaky eyewitness who placed her in the vicinity of the killing of a 17-year-old gas station attendant.

Visiting Assistant Professorships Provide Real-World Insights

While law schools continue to provide rigorous academic and intellectual training, some are starting to supplement this with more practical instruction. Several law schools have started Visiting Assistant Professorship programs in which practicing attorneys join as full-time faculty. By giving these attorneys a chance to concentrate on their scholarship and teaching, law schools hope to mentor promising newcomers with private sector, government and nonprofit experience and introduce them to academia.

The Lost Generation

A recent study from Harvard Law School's Program on the Legal Profession, working with the American Bar Association, has found that big law firms are steadily hemorrhaging nearly 50% of their young associates - and most are leaving of their own accord.

Remembering Veterans Affairs

A new initiative is spearheading the fight to protect our veterans. The Veterans Rights Project, led by Rachel Natelson of New York's Urban Justice Center, seeks to address the plight of our soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Ms. Natelson wants to fight "the unjust and abuse-ridden claims application process, the lack of accountability for recruiting irregularities and sexual harassment and the persistence of the ill-conceived 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy."