The Importance of Student Organizations
Student organizations enrich a law student’s experience. Whether it is bringing in practitioners to discuss the practice of law or bringing in scholars to debate important legal issues, student organizations—and the events they sponsor—help law students think about the law. To be successful and to produce successful lawyers, a law school should encourage students to think about the law outside the classroom. It is outside the classroom where a student may pursue the law in more depth and choose a topic that is important and interesting to him or her.
The Law School began its fall semester today, having welcomed through orientation the past two days both full-time (185) and part-time (34) students embarking upon their legal education. We welcomed—and welcome—as well a handful of transfer students. My beginning-of-semester letter to the community, with some information, I believe, of general interest about the Law School, is 
This fall, Marquette University Law School is fortunate to have Professor Michael R. Smith as a Robert E. Boden Visiting Professor of Law. Professor Smith is visiting from the University of Wyoming College of Law, where he is the Winston S. Howard Distinguished Professor of Law and the Director of Legal Writing. Professor Smith’s work in legal writing and written advocacy is nationally renowned. He has published a book on persuasive legal writing entitled Advanced Legal Writing: Theories and Strategies in Persuasive Writing (Aspen 2002). This book has received such interest and acclaim that the release of the second edition was the impetus for a 2008 conference, A Dialogue About Persuasion in Legal Writing & Lawyering, which was held at Rutgers Law School-Camden.