Welcome to Our November Alumni Blogger

Our  alumni guest blogger for the month of November is Joe Riepenhoff, L’14, who is appearing for a return engagement, having been a student guest blogger back in October 2012. While at Marquette, Joe was a student advisory board member for the Marquette Volunteer Legal Clinic, an intern for the Waukesha County Circuit Court criminal division judges, and research assistant for Prof. Daniel Blinka. Since graduating he has worked as a staff attorney for the Wisconsin State Public Defender Office, a conflicts analysts at Foley and Lardner, and is now a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee.

Welcome back to the Faculty Blog, Joe!

Continue ReadingWelcome to Our November Alumni Blogger

Tommy Thompson Told His Daughter to Try Being a Public Defender –and It Launched Her Career

Kelli Thompson admits she wasn’t entirely eager to become a lawyer, particularly the kind involved in courtroom work. As a student at Marquette Law School, “I probably did a very, very good job of staying far, far away from any kind of trial advocacy or litigation type of class. I think my thought was I would get the J.D. behind my name and just do something else. The something else, I have no idea what that was going to be.”

But, she said during an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program at Eckstein Hall on October 15, 2019, “In my third year of law school, I think it was killing my father that I was not even considering going into a courtroom.”

Her father, by the way, is Tommy G. Thompson, who, at that time in the mid-1990s, was governor of Wisconsin.

Kelli Thompson recalled, “At that point in time, he certainly wasn’t pushy, but he said, ‘Before you decide you hate it (courtroom work), you at least have to try it.’ . . . He said Marquette has wonderful clinical programs.” He told his daughter to pick one. “I said, ‘OK, you pick for me because I don’t know what I want to do’ . . . He said, ‘There’s no doubt, public defender, you should go there.’

So she did. “I can say quite honestly, after my first couple of days, I was hooked,” Kelli Thompson said.

Continue ReadingTommy Thompson Told His Daughter to Try Being a Public Defender –and It Launched Her Career

Pro Bono Week: Student and Alumni Features, Part II

For the remaining Pro Bono Week features, not only do we have some individual students and alumni, but we also feature a student organization as well. Please follow us on Twitter and Instagram to see more photos throughout the week.

Our next student to be featured is Kelsey Brown. Kelsey is a 3L and will be graduating this December. Student at work in a pro bono clinicShe has been involved since October of her first year of law school and has participated with the House of Peace, UCC, Milwaukee Justice Center, and the Veteran’s Service Office throughout her law school tenure.

Her reasons for participating in pro bono opportunities: “I decided to do pro bono because I wanted to better educate people on the law. I felt that if people were better educated on the law, then they are in a better position to recognize and fight against unfair and unnecessary treatment against them. I also wanted to be a role model for individuals who come to the clinics. I wanted to show them that lawyers come in all shapes, sizes, and shades—just like them. And hopefully by seeing an African American female such as myself working at the clinic, they will see the legitimacy of the Wisconsin court system. My favorite thing about volunteering at is that everyone feels good—the client feels good because he or she received legal advice; and the volunteer law student/volunteer lawyer feel good because they helped a client understand the Wisconsin legal system.”

Salonee Patel is a 3L who has been working with the pro bono programs for about two and half years. She’s volunteered with the Milwaukee Justice Center in the past but you can primarily find her at the United Community Center this year. Students at work in a pro bono clinicShe is one of our Student Advisory Board members and says her favorite part is “working alongside attorneys and students to help our clients out with their legal issues.”

Salonee has many reasons for doing pro bono work. “It is important to volunteer and help out especially when you have the time and resources to do so,” she says, and “as a law student, not only do you start learning certain legal skills, but you also get to know your community better.”

Not only do individual students, participate in pro bono work, our student organizations do too.

Continue ReadingPro Bono Week: Student and Alumni Features, Part II