Data Points to IU McKinney Appellate Clinic as National Leader
08/05/2025
Law school clinics provide students with practical experience while offering services to real clients who need—but cannot afford—legal assistance.
While clinics support both students and clients, law school legal clinics are also involved in significant legal work that impacts courts nationwide. In this field, the Appellate Clinic at IU McKinney Law is among the most active in the U.S., according to data analysis by Adam Feldman, creator and author of the blog Empirical SCOTUS and the Substack Legalytics.
The Substack post, “Breaking Down Data on Law School Clinics from the Past Year,” offers a detailed overview of law school clinic work from April 2024 to April 2025, based on court opinions. It presents the data by school, clinic, and court, showing which schools are most active and influential in litigation, as seen in appellate rulings, district court decisions, or specialized venues like the Court of Federal Claims.?
IU McKinney, with seven opinions added to the case law record during the 12 months analyzed, ranked among the top 10 law school clinics by activity level, alongside those at Harvard, Stanford, Georgetown University, Tulane University, the University of Virginia, NYU, George Washington University, UC Davis, and Northwestern University.
McKinney’s Appellate Clinic also led all law school clinics in state appellate court activity, according to the analysis.
In his Substack piece, Feldman notes that “While elite law schools—those consistently ranked
In the top 14 nationally, show strong representation, with a notable presence from regional and mid-ranked schools, underscores the broad and growing influence of clinical education in American legal practice.”
Seven mentions in opinions by the Indiana Court of Appeals tell a “striking story,” regarding IU McKinney legal clinics “shaping doctrine through steady engagement with local legal systems,” according to Feldman.
“The [IU McKinney Appellate] clinic’s sustained engagement allows students to develop expertise in local procedural norms and judicial reasoning, while also giving the court the benefit of high-quality legal briefs and arguments from a dedicated public service program,” Feldman wrote.
Feldman observes that repeated appearances by law school clinics in the same courts show a pattern of strong institutional involvement. McKinney’s Appellate Clinic is among the “repeat players” that build relationships with judges, improve procedural skills in specific forums, and establish reputations as important contributors to legal development in their respective jurisdictions.
“I’m not surprised.”
Since its founding in 2008, the Appellate Clinic at IU McKinney has enabled more than 60 students to work on more than 65 cases, according to the clinic’s founder and director, Professor Joel Schumm, ’98.
A magna cum laude graduate from McKinney’s part-time evening program, Professor Schumm joined the faculty in the fall of 2001 after clerking at the Indiana Supreme Court and Indiana Court of Appeals. He has been recognized as one of the “Best Lawyers in America” for Appellate Practice for more than a decade.
Professor Schumm has represented more than 250 indigent clients on appeal, either individually or as part of the Appellate Clinic. He has argued numerous significant criminal, juvenile, and civil commitment cases before the Indiana Supreme Court.
“I started the Appellate Clinic to offer students an opportunity to gain real-world experience writing appellate briefs and presenting oral arguments,” Professor Schumm said. “It’s a high point of teaching. I get to work with some of the best and brightest McKinney students who give 110% to every case and client.”
Suzy St. John, JD, ’09, was a student in the first Appellate Clinic and now serves as an adjunct professor helping Schumm supervise student work. Although each clinic student is assigned their own appeal, all students read and discuss the record in every case and provide feedback to their colleagues. Several have argued cases orally before the Indiana Court of Appeals or the Indiana Supreme Court.
Katie Boren, JD, ’10, senior legal counsel at Polyvantis in Evansville, participated in the Appellate Clinic as a McKinney student, an experience that shaped her career.
“I’m not surprised that the Appellate Clinic is doing well compared to other law schools,” Boren says. “I had a very good experience with the Appellate Clinic, and Professor Schumm is an excellent appellate lawyer.”
Boren was assigned a misdemeanor case where the defendant wanted to call a witness, but the court wouldn’t grant a continuance to allow more time to produce that witness. Her argument helped win the appeal.
“What was memorable for me in that class was its success rate. The statistics on winning a criminal appeal are terrible. Statistically, you are losing,” Boren says. “Yet three of the four of us got reversals. In my case, my client was not facing jail time, but we probably did impact cases beyond this one.”
Boren says that her clinic experience proved her value to employers, including the Evansville firms of Ziemer, Stayman, Weitzel & Shoulders and Stoll Keenon Ogden, where she managed a substantial amount of appellate work. Although she now works as in-house counsel, she still considers appellate work one of her core strengths.?
“Not every lawyer has appellate experience in their back pocket,” Boren says. “You can be very valuable to a firm if you have that experience.”
Like Boren, James Strickland, JD, ’18, an attorney with Faegre Drinker, says that experience outside the classroom, including work with Professor Schumm and the Appellate Clinic, taught him a great deal about how to think, identify the essential facts, consider and craft strong arguments, assess the broader implications for public policy, and understand the evolution of the law over time.
“Professor Schumm is good at letting students lead the way, even if, as a student, you can feel a bit like the kid driving the school bus,” Strickland says. “Those opportunities help you grow professionally.”
Strickland participated in two clinic experiences: once during the typical fall semester as a 3L, and then when Professor Schumm asked him to work on a second, more complex case that extended into Strickland’s final semester.?
That appeal overturned a jury verdict, in a decision announced just before the start of finals.
“We had met with our client personally—he was incarcerated—and so it was gratifying to see the court recognize the argument we were making,” Strickland says. “It was quite the capstone for my law school experience.”
