Message from the Associate Dean
Fall 2025 is my first semester at Alabama Law. This year, my family and I moved home to the South after twelve years in Los Angeles. I am an Alabamian, born and reared as a Crimson Tide fan, so it is a true gift to come home to the University and join the work of the Law Clinics. As the first Associate Dean of Experiential Learning, I direct the Law Clinics and help steward experiential education across the curriculum, part of a renewed and heightened commitment from the faculty and administration to expand and improve students’ opportunities for professional formation, practice readiness, and comprehensive legal education — all through excellent, ethical, ambitious service to our community.
The UA Law Clinics have a long and storied commitment to access to justice and legal education in the South. For generations, brilliant law professors and students have served our clients and inspired careers of justice, integrity, and excellence among our alumni. Alabama Law guarantees a seat in a clinic to every law student who wants to learn and practice with us. In each clinic, students learn more than how to “think like a lawyer,” but how to actually be a lawyer committed to their client with all the expertise, skill, integrity, and wisdom they have developed in school and life.
Read more about their vital work here.
Roll Tide.
Jeffrey R. Baker
Associate Dean of Experiential Learning & Clinical Professor of Law
Appellate Advocacy Clinic
The Appellate Advocacy Clinic has continued its partnership with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Two teams of students presented oral argument before the Court this semester: 3Ls Noah Harrelson and Marie Doyle Pressman traveled to Atlanta to present their argument, and 3Ls Abby Vandiver and Sarah Frances Jackson presented their argument at the Hugo L. Black United States Courthouse in Birmingham.
Pictured: Appellate Advocacy Clinic Director Travis Ramey with 3Ls Marie Doyle Pressman and Noah Harrelson outside of the Elbert P. Tuttle U.S. Court of Appeals Building in Atlanta.
Children’s Rights Clinic
This semester, the Children’s Rights Clinic helped over 30 children access appropriate services from their schools and community through in-person advocacy. For example, they helped one child stay in school who will graduate this semester and identified community resources for three children to access GED programs. The Clinic is also running its annual book drive for the Tuscaloosa County Juvenile Detention Center.
Civil Law Clinic
The Civil Law Clinic had numerous litigation successes this past year, including a $250,000 defense verdict in a three-day jury trial and another trial that resulted in a $200,000 judgment for their clients.
In addition to handling major litigation matters in both state and federal courts, Civil Clinic students have also successfully litigated dozens of cases in housing and small claims courts.
Pictured: James Duer, Bella Prince, Greg Short, and Acker Holt (all Class of 2025) standing outside of the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse after successfully defending their client against a $250,000 case.
Criminal Defense Clinic
Students in the Criminal Defense Clinic and the Public Interest Institute, along with Clinic director Tobie Smith and staff attorney Michael Nissenbaum, partnered with Outside the Walls to host a driver’s license restoration clinic for formerly incarcerated people.
Additionally, two students in the Clinic, 3Ls Ben Johnson and Peter Lough, gained their first trial experience when they defended a client at trial on two misdemeanors and three traffic offenses.
Pictured: Criminal Defense Clinic students speak with people in line to begin the driver’s license restoration process at the McDonald Hughes Center in Tuscaloosa.
Domestic Violence Law Clinic
For the second year in a row, Domestic Violence Law Clinic students partnered with UA’s Camellia Center during their annual Fall Campfire event to help bring awareness to the issue of interpersonal violence. Additionally, students have been working on ideas for expanding the Clinic’s reach throughout Tuscaloosa County, and Clinic Director Beth Crutchfield is partnering with UA’s School of Social Work to incorporate both undergraduate and graduate level social work students into the Law School’s Clinical Programs.
Pictured: 3Ls Aaron Ghobrial, Jessica Talley, Madison Tolbert, and Oshea Beckford and 2L Madison Jones at the Camellia Center’s Fall Campfire event on the Quad.
Entrepreneurship & Nonprofit Clinic
The Entrepreneurship & Nonprofit Clinic (E-Clinic), directed by Professor Frederick Spight, hosted a Business of Art Workshop at Coleman Center for the Arts in York, Alabama to discuss key legal considerations for artists and art entrepreneurs like intellectual property, business formation, contractual agreements, and AI.
The E-Clinic also kicked off their collaboration with UA’s Department of Theatre and Dance in which E-Clinic students will work with theatre and dance majors to create contracts for the performers to use in the future.
Additionally, Professor Spight judged the Alabama Entrepreneurship Institute’s River Pitch Competition. Several E-Clinic students were also in attendance.
Pictured: 3L Jordan Davis, 3L Zenia Koulidi, CCA Executive Director Dr. Marguerite Hinrichs, 3L PJ Johnson, 3L Grant Hawkins, and Entrepreneurship & Nonprofit Clinic Director Frederick Spight at Coleman Center for the Arts.
Mediation Clinic
Students in the Mediation Clinic, along with members of the Public Interest Student Board, taught a four-week peaceful conflict resolution course at Collins-Riverside Intermediate School in Northport. The curriculum was developed by Mediation Clinic director Susan Donovan and Bailey Ruhm (’25) for the Alabama Supreme Court Commission on Dispute Resolution’s Public Education and School & Community Mediation Committee, which Professor Donovan chairs. Due to the success of this pilot program, Professor Donovan and her Committee hope to expand the curriculum to other middle schools across Alabama.
Pictured: 3Ls Andrew Weisenfeld, Paisley Flagg, Mackenzie Cole, and Austin Bowling in a classroom at Collins-Riverside Intermediate School in Northport.