Last week, the University of Wisconsin Law School was recognized by Bloomberg Law in the 2023-24 Law School Innovation Program. The program recognizes law schools and their faculty and staff that have implemented and led innovative programs into their curricula that advance new methodologies and approaches to student instruction, legal technology implementation and usage, experiential learning, and other facets of legal education.
The UW Law School was recognized in the “Beyond the Law” category for the Law Library’s Advanced Legal Research and Legal Technology Experiential Coursework and Certifications. An article posted this week describes the program:
In 2022, the University of Wisconsin Law School, through its law library, began offering two new innovative courses in advanced legal research and legal technology. The classes allow students to hone their investigation, analysis, and research skills while working with technology experts outside of the law school.
The coursework prepares students for real-world problems by certifying students in 12 different technologies that they can use to solve legal problems. These experiential courses utilize the knowledge of both law librarians and the expertise of technology vendors to train law students to apply rapidly evolving legal technology to research.
Last year, thanks to guest lectures from vendors and other experts, students were exposed to new generative AI resources as soon as they were released.
“The legal industry advances when lawyers become better consumers of technology and more efficient legal researchers,” explained Kris Turner, associate director of public services for UW Law School. “The UW Law School’s coursework emphasizes practical skills that may otherwise go untaught or ignored, or even worse, assumed to have been gleaned elsewhere.”
As one student evaluation remarked, “I can’t believe how many things I did not know before coming into this class (you don’t know what you don’t know!).” This coursework aims to fill this knowledge gap.