The National Jurist Recognizes Arizona Law Among Best Schools for Practical Training

As a student in the University of Arizona Innocence Project, rising third-year law student Gabrielle Hetrick learned what many attorneys don’t see until they are well into the practice.  

“A lot of being an attorney is learning to be good at reading and reviewing documents and picking up on errors where things have happened or at picking out that small thing that may actually be a big thing, and a lot of innocence work fine tunes those skills,” Hetrick says. 

At the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, students like Hetrick get practical training in both big-picture thinking and attention to detail through the college’s 16 clinics, on matters from business formation to high-stakes criminal cases. And they get something perhaps even more important: The chance to serve clients from all walks of life often encountering legal systems for the first time. 

In 2026, The National Jurist recognized Arizona Law’s robust clinical program, naming the college to its Best Schools for Practical Training Honor Roll, ranking at #7 with an A+ rating.  

“Ready to Practice” 

According to Vanessa Buch, clinical professor of law and director of the University of Arizona   Innocence Project, the value of Arizona Law’s clinics is apparent in the conversations she has with attorneys in the community. “The students graduating out of the clinics at U of A come to us well prepared and ready to practice,” they often tell her. 

The U of A Innocence Project works with incarcerated clients on wrongful conviction claims. Students like Hetrick scour the files of cases that have often dragged on for years, if not decades, reviewing evidence, testimony and appellate briefs. In 2024, the U of A Innocence Project was awarded a $1.5 million U.S. Department of Justice grant, expanding the clinic’s capacity to provide DNA evidence. 

A Boutique Firm Experience 

While the U of A Innocence Project exposes students to complex criminal matters, clinics at Arizona Law provide opportunities in a diverse range of practice areas.  

For example, the Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship Clinic works with small businesses and individuals establishing their brands, protecting their innovations, and forming their businesses. Arizona Law is certified by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USTPO) to provide both patent and trademark filing assistance. In the past two years, the clinic’s Executive Director Gavin Milczarek-Desai (’00) says the clinic has seen its 20^th issued patent and 100^th trademark registration. 

“We are basically a boutique intellectual property and basic business law firm; that’s exactly the experience that [students] get,” says Milczarek-Desai, a former managing partner of the Tucson office of Quarles & Brady.  

Rising third-year law student Rosemary Boswell was drawn to the IP clinic by an interest in the IP-adjacent field of sports law and is now pursuing a career in IP. Her first project was walking a client through a federal trademark application, including the initial screening interview and engagement letter, a search for potentially conflicting trademarks, and filing an application with the USPTO. 

“The clinic is really your first time where you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m really doing this,’ and it’s nice to see your growth and progress, especially if you do multiple trademark applications throughout the semester,” says Boswell. 

Milczarek-Desai also recognizes the important pro bono function of the clinic: “I’m really excited that we get to work with everyday-Arizonans who either have a small business or are starting a business, to help them think about what’s important in terms of what kind of intellectual property protection they need to be seeking.” 

Serving the Most Vulnerable 

Some of the everyday-Arizonans the Law clinics help are children. Directed by Charles E. Ares Professor of Law Paul Bennett, the Child and Family Law Clinic represents children from birth to age 18 in cases that decide where they will be placed, such as in foster care or with a parent or other relative.  

Bennett has been a clinical professor at Arizona Law since 1996, when he says there were three clinical faculty and a few volunteers. He also served as the director of the entire clinical program from 2015 to 2022. 

He says students in his clinic come to understand what it’s like to work with a client in a traumatic situation. “There’s sort of a myth — and maybe it’s a myth that some law students share — that lawyers are disinterested technocrats,” he notes. “We’re not. We’re people, and of course the things that my students see will affect them.” Students work in teams to ensure they always have a sounding board. They’re also able to process their emotional reactions, along with their legal theories, in weekly class discussions.  

Currently, the Child and Family Law Clinic is awaiting the outcome of a case pending before the Arizona Supreme Court, In Re Termination of Parental Rights as to M.P., which involves how the standard for child neglect is applied when the state wants to terminate parental rights. In January 2026, Bennett argued before the high court on behalf of the clinic’s young child client. The clinic also represented the child before the Arizona Court of Appeals. 

According to Bennett, the Arizona Law clinical faculty have a common goal in their varied matters: “We try to push [students] a little bit outside their comfort zone—to try things that they don’t even think they can do, because they can. They have so much potential inside that that’s untapped.” 

And as result of the strong and diverse Arizona Law clinical program, students in these and a range of other clinics are tapping into skills and perspectives that will serve them throughout their legal careers, wherever those careers take them.