21st Howard B. Eisenberg Do-Gooders’ Auction–An Interview with PILS Fellow Trisha Fritz

Trisha FritzThe 21st Annual Howard B. Eisenberg Do-Gooders’ Auction on behalf of the Law School’s Public Interest Law Society (PILS) will be held in the evening on Friday, February 21, 2014 at the Law School.  Proceeds from the event go to support PILS fellowships to enable Marquette law students to do public interest work in the summer.  Trisha Fritz, a current law student, shares her experience here as a PILS Fellow.  Besides her work as a PILS Fellow, Trisha is helping to organize this year’s Auction.

You may attend the Auction by purchasing tickets here, or you may purchase tickets at the door.  This link also provides you with an option to donate to the Auction.

Where did you work as a PILS Fellow?

I worked at the Milwaukee County Public Defender’s Office in the Juvenile and Mental Health Office located in Wauwatosa.

What kind of work did you do there?

I mainly worked with Juveniles involved in Juvenile Delinquency cases. The office also handles CHIPS, TPR, JIPS, and Mental Health Commitment cases, and I was able to dapple in those areas, but I mainly worked with Delinquency cases. All of the Juveniles that come through the delinquency system have a state public defender assigned to their case. My role was to interview clients and families and continue to handle their cases at various stages through the criminal process. I was able to practice under the student practice rule where I was able to handle all delinquency hearings from the initial detention hearing to disposition hearing (sentencing in the juvenile system).

Continue Reading21st Howard B. Eisenberg Do-Gooders’ Auction–An Interview with PILS Fellow Trisha Fritz

21st Howard B. Eisenberg Do-Gooders’ Auction–An Interview with PILS Fellow Zachariah Fudge

Zach FudgeThe 21st Annual Howard B. Eisenberg Do-Gooders’ Auction on behalf of the Law School’s Public Interest Law Society (PILS) will be held in the evening on Friday, February 21, 2014 at the Law School.  Proceeds from the event go to support PILS fellowships to enable Marquette law students to do public interest work in the summer. Zachariah Fudge, a current law student, shares his experience here as a PILS Fellow.  Besides his work as a PILS Fellow, Zachariah is active on the PILS student board.

You may attend the Auction by purchasing tickets here or you may purchase tickets at the door.  This link also provides you with an opportunity to donate to the Auction.

Where did you work as a PILS Fellow?

This past summer I was a legal intern at the Alternate Public Defender’s Office in San Diego.

What kind of work did you do there?

The Alternate Public Defender took on felony cases where there was a conflict with the main Public Defender’s Office, so our cases were usually more complex, multi-defendant affairs. I was able to do quite a bit over the course of my brief tenure, including conducting client and witness interviews, researching, drafting motions, and representing clients during various types of hearings. I was able to second chair a ten-day trial that ended in the dismissal of all charges, so that was exciting.

Continue Reading21st Howard B. Eisenberg Do-Gooders’ Auction–An Interview with PILS Fellow Zachariah Fudge

Do Like a Lawyer

The start of the new academic year means a new group of first-year law students, ready for the three-year adventure that is law school. And each fall, those same students hear much about what they’re going to learn in law school. Usually the main thing they hear is that they will learn to “think like a lawyer.”

It’s certainly true that law school will teach students a particular way of thinking critically that will infuse all of their thinking from here forward. It’s also true that lawyers ought to be thinking critically. (So should everyone, in my view.) But law school should do more than teach students how to “think like a lawyer.” It should teach students how to “be” lawyers.

It is on this thought that I am reminded of Steven M. Radke, L’02.  The Law School invited Radke, vice president of government relations at Northwestern Mutual Insurance Co., to speak at its orientation event in fall 2006. Radke gave an entertaining and informative speech to that year’s entering class, the text of which can be found here. At one point, Radke discussed the often-stated law school goal of learning to “think like a lawyer,” a goal, he said, that is a bit troubling, particularly if it suggests that there is a single way lawyers think. He continued,

[I]f, God forbid, I someday find myself being wheeled into an emergency room, I hope the person preparing to operate on me doesn’t just think like a doctor.  I want him or her to be a doctor.

Radke’s point is spot on. Law school should not only teach students how to “think like a lawyer,” but it should also teach students how to be a lawyer. 

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