USD Magazine Fall 2026

COUNSEL FOR THE COMMUNITY By Ben Peterson

THE USD SCHOOL OF LAW’S LEGAL CLINICS CONNECT STUDENTS WITH CASES AND REAL CLIENTS WHOSE LIVES DEPEND ON THE OUTCOMES

Every day, the phones start ringing early and often at the clinics. From all over the San Diego area and beyond, community members are calling about evictions, immigration hearings, veterans’ benefits, wrongful convictions and workplace disputes. These are legal problems that can upend a life, and most callers have no idea how to navigate them on their own. In the last year alone, USD School of Law’s Legal Clinics received more than 8,000 of those calls. With 13 total clinics, USD is home to one of the leading clinical education programs in the country. The National Jurist’s preLaw magazine gave USD Law an A+ for practical training in 2026, placing it in the top 10 nationally. And in 2025, more than 145 student interns logged over 19,200 hours of free legal services, work estimated to be worth more than $3.3 million to San Diego County residents who, in most cases, had nowhere else to turn. The clinics have operated this way for more than 55 years, built on a simple but demanding premise: that the best way to train a lawyer is to have them represent a real client with a real problem, under the supervision of experienced attorneys who have done it themselves. “Both of those things come together here,” said Eric Austin ’11 (JD), interim academic director of the clinics. “It’s absolutely beautiful to watch students who are eager to provide that service matched with people who desperately need it.” Each clinic is supervised by experienced attorneys who also serve as faculty. Austin describes the program as a single law firm with multiple practice areas, and clinic faculty regularly cross refer clients whose problems span more than one specialty. In fact, students sometimes find themselves working alongside colleagues from other clinics on the same case. What draws faculty to this work, and what keeps them here, is harder to quantify than hours logged or cases closed. For many, it comes down to a particular kind of moment when a student stops performing the role of lawyer and simply becomes one. “I wanted a law school that was going to bridge the gap between studying to be a lawyer and being a practicing lawyer in the real world,” said Alienor Alexander, a 3L currently interning at the Women’s Legal Clinic. “I don’t think that I would be as strong a candidate or as productive if I didn’t have practical experience.”

Top row (left to right): Logan Quessenberry ’26 (JD), Meredith Levin, JD, James Spradley ’23 (JD), Alienor Alexander, Eric Austin ’11 (JD). Bottom row (left to right): Emily Schroeder, Renee Ding, Olivia Wallgren, Joe Villaseñor ’07 (JD), Tammy Lin ’06 (JD), Katie Parker ’02 (JD).

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