KU Law Magazine is published twice a year for alumni and friends of the University of Kansas School of Law. Green Hall, 1535 W. 15th St. Lawrence, KS 66045-7608 785.864.4550 | F: 785.864.5054 law.ku.edu DEAN Stephen Mazza EDITOR & DESIGNER Mindie Paget kulaws@ku.edu | 785.864.9205 CONTRIBUTORS Monica Hill Henning, L’16 Nicole Krambeer Mike Krings Lumen Mulligan Emily Sharp PHOTOS KU Marketing Communications Mindie Paget Earl Richardson, L’08 Mark Schotte University Archives PRINTING Allen Press, Lawrence, KS
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MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN
Ensuring justice, preparing leaders On Dec. 8, 2015, Floyd Bledsoe walked out of the Jefferson County Courthouse, his lips curled in a broad smile. Moments earlier, a bailiff had unlocked Floyd’s shackles, freeing him to embrace the attorneys who had spent nearly a decade fighting to prove he didn’t commit the murder that had landed him a life sentence — the same attorneys who now walked beside him as he tasted emancipation after 16 years in prison. Those fierce advocates? KU Law Professors Elizabeth Cateforis, Alice Craig and Jean Phillips. Just last month, they received the Sean O’Brien Freedom Award from our funding partners at the Midwest Innocence Project for their tireless work on Floyd’s case. I am beyond proud to count them as my faculty colleagues. The trio supervises students in the school’s Paul E. Wilson Project for Innocence & Post-Conviction Remedies, training them to become skilled legal researchers and writers while managing their own cases for incarcerated clients. Since 2008, the Project has won more than 40 direct appeals, constitutional challenges, and actual innocence cases. A cornerstone of KU Law’s clinical program, the Project quietly turned 50 years old about a month before Floyd’s exoneration. More than 800 students have gained practical experience and a more nuanced understanding of our justice system through the Project since Professor Paul Wilson launched the pioneering effort in 1965. Thousands more have capitalized on our expanding menu of clinics, externships, simulation courses and moot court opportunities — from Legal Aid to the MedicalLegal Partnership to the Deposition Skills Workshop. That’s why National Jurist magazine recently ranked us 21st in the nation for offering the best practical training for future lawyers. Graduates tell us time and again that their most meaningful experiences in law school are rooted in clinics. It’s where they translate classroom theory to real-world practice and gain the confidence and skills necessary for success in their careers. It’s where they learn to be tenacious, as Floyd Bledsoe wrote in a thank-you note to the law school, “grabbing a hammer and chisel and pickax and removing a mountain.” Alumni donors, volunteers and mentors help make those transformations possible. With your continued support, we can help ensure justice, build healthy communities through clinical advocacy and nurture the boundless potential of each new class of KU Lawyers.
Stephen W. Mazza Dean and Professor of Law