Marquette University Law School is first an academic institution - a center for teaching and learning about the law. Excellence in scholarship is critical to this focus and both students and faculty contribute in a wide array of scholarly endeavors beyond the classroom. At the same time, as a practical institution, Marquette Law School seeks to place its scholarship at the service of the common good.

The Office for Public Service can provide a forum to connect scholarship and teaching with the needs of the broader community. Through active engagement in scholarly research that addresses issues at play in the public policy arena, answering requests for legal research and continuing legal education by local community service agencies, examining the role of law in social change, and integrating a concern for the law's impact upon the least advantaged throughout the curriculum, Marquette Law School reaches beyond itself and connects with the world, particularly serving those least able to access the justice system on their own.

As a center for public policy, Marquette Law School will endeavor to address the critical issues of the day through conferences, forums, educational opportunities and research. The curriculum itself provides a wide range of opportunities for students and faculty who are interested in public service — and Marquette is dedicated to developing additional practical courses, field placements and service opportunities in public interest law. In these many ways, Marquette is at once a private law school focused on personal and professional training of new lawyers and a center for public discussion on the practical impact of law and justice on the common person. All of this makes education at Marquette Law School an uncommonly good experience.