DePaul

Number of clinics: 8

Program launched: 1970s, with a small civil law firm

Most recent clinics: 2011 — Poverty Law Clinic, Housing & Community Development Clinic

Highlights: Five of the school’s eight clinics launched in the last eight years, all in social justice matters. DePaul now has seven social justice clinics along with its IP clinic. The school had a death penalty clinic which closed in 2011 with the abolishment of Illinois’ death penalty.


IIT Chicago-Kent

Number of clinics: 10

Program launched: 1976 — Civil Litigation Clinic

Most recent clinic: 2012 — Entrepreneurial Law Clinic

Highlights: IIT Chicago-Kent is the only school in Illinois to use a fee-generating model, which in 2014 provided 60 percent of its clinical budget. The school launched the state’s first employment law clinic in 1988 and has one of the state’s two tax law clinics.


Loyola

Number of clinics: 7

Program launched: 1980s — Community Law Center

Most recent clinics: 2010’s ChildLaw Legislation and Policy Clinic and the Health Justice Project

Highlights: In 2010, Loyola added the ChildLaw Legislation and Policy Clinic as a complement to its Child and Family Law Clinic, which it launched in 1995. The school established the Federal Tax Clinic in 1988, the first tax clinic in the state.


Northern Illinois

Number of clinics: 4

Program launched: Not provided

Most recent clinic: 2014 — Health Advocacy Clinic

Highlights: NIU doubled its clinical slate in the past three years, adding clinics in health advocacy and foreclosure mediation as well as ones in civil justice and juvenile justice. Clinics operate “on-location” in nearby Rockford and Aurora.


Northwestern

Number of clinics: 16

Program launched: 1976 — Civil Litigation Clinic

Most recent clinic: 2009 — Environmental Advocacy Clinic

Highlights: One of the state’s early leaders in clinical education, Northwestern’s Bluhm Legal Clinic saw two major growth periods, adding six clinics from 1991 to 1999 and another six from 2003 to 2009. The school’s slate is well known for its innocence-related clinics.


Southern Illinois

Number of clinics: 3

Program launched: 1970s — prison legal service (now defunct)

Most recent clinic: 2011 — Juvenile Justice Clinic

Highlights: SIU offers clinics in domestic violence, juvenile justice and elder law, the latter of which launched in 1983 as the first such clinic in the state. Last year, with SIU’s law library transitioning to electronic material, the school eliminated some of its physical library space to build more space for clinical students.


John Marshall

Number of clinics: 10

Program launched: 1993 — Fair Housing Legal Support Center & Clinic

Most recent clinics: 2014 — Conflict Resolution Institute & Clinic, USPTO Trademark Clinic

Highlights: Another school with a recent clinical boom, adding five clinics since 2013. A facilities expansion in 2011 created more clinical space, most notably for the school’s veterans support clinic, the state’s only clinic supporting American war veterans.


University of Chicago

Number of clinics: 16

Program launched: Late 1950s, a general civil practice

Most recent clinic: 2013 — International Human Rights Clinic

Highlights: Clinical offerings range from environmental law to employment discrimination to international human rights to mental health. Among U. of C.’s standouts are the recently renamed Kirkland & Ellis Corporate Lab, which trains students in transactional work for Fortune 500 companiesand the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Clinic, which monitors police activity.


University of Illinois

Number of clinics: 4

Program launched: 1996 — Civil Litigation Clinic

Most recent clinic: 2013 — Elder Financial Justice Clinic

Highlights: U. of I.’s four in-house clinics tackle civil litigation, family law, elder law and foreclosure mediation — the latter in the school’s Community Preservation Clinic which launched in 2011 and assists homeowners in McLean and Champaign counties.