Welcome to the Law and Policy blog. Our blog features the projects of our practicums, which are making an impact across policy sectors in the international, national, state, and local arenas. The practicums are led by faculty experts, staffed by talented graduate students from across the university, and driven by the specific needs of real-world clients. Clients represent a wide array of public interest groups and NGO’s, as well as government agencies and affiliates, ranging from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. Projects typically engage the intersection of law and policy, though some are more oriented around legal issues and others more specific to a policy area. Whatever the topic, the goal of the Policy Lab is to teach students policy analysis skills that extend their legal advocacy and field-related training. By extending students’ modes of analysis, the practicums probe and help resolve immediate issues for clients and give our students the skills they will need to engage and solve the complexities of tomorrow’s public policy.

As the stories of our practicums unfold here, you’ll learn how Barbara van Schewick’s Net Neutrality practicum contributed to FCC thinking in its recent decision on Open Internet Rules (February 26, 2015), helping to ensure a “fast, fair and open Internet.” You will see the difference that David Hayes’s Wildlife Trafficking practicum made in advising the Federal Advisory Council on Wildlife Trafficking, which is currently enhancing protections for species beyond elephants and rhinos. If you have ever downloaded a photograph from the Internet without thinking about copyright, you’ll be interested in how Paul Goldstein’s Copyright practicum is working with the U.S. Copyright Office to develop an online tool for frictionless licensing of photographs. And on an international scale, you can follow the Beth van Schaack’s and Allen Weiner’s teams, which are moving policies to help prevent mass atrocities and manage regime change with lessons learned from the Syrian crisis. These are just five of the 44 practicums that are changing the way our students engage with law and policy. Tasked with making a positive difference, the Law and Policy Lab is shaping a new path in experiential learning that engages tangible results.

We hope you’ll join us on this journey in confronting and thinking through the public policy issues of our era.