A service providing free legal help to students has a goal of “removing barriers preventing people from achieving the academic and career goals that matter most to them.” | Scales of justice photo via Getty Images Creative
Having access to free legal advice might not seem like a high priority for higher education, but for some students pursuing a bachelor’s degree from a four-year university or an associate’s degree at a vocational technical college, legal problems can be a significant obstacle.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation
Fortunately, students in Wisconsin’s public universities, technical colleges and two tribal colleges, have access to a free legal resource.
Law for Learners, created in 2019, is a program offered in Wisconsin by the non-profit Ascendium whose focus is “removing barriers preventing people from achieving the academic and career goals that matter most to them.”
It began at Madison College and the Milwaukee Area Technical College and then expanded to all the public technical colleges.
The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater was the first of the UW system schools to offer Law for Learners for college students, and then in January 2024 Ascendium signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the entire UW system and the service became available statewide in the spring of 2024.
Originally called Lawyers for Learners, it has served 3,400 students over the last 5 years
Most of the issues the group deals with are family related (27%), such as alimony, child custody and placement, child support, divorce and legal separation, guardianship of a minor or paternity.
Housing issues make up about 18% of cases, including evictions, housing rights violations, security deposit returns and unsafe housing concerns.
Criminal matters (14%of cases) have been the third highest area of concern, addressing background checks, expungement of convictions and pardons.
Rebecca Rapp, on-staff general counsel for Ascendium Education Group in Madison, said expunging a conviction or obtaining a pardon, especially for felony, could make the difference in whether a college student could even have a future career in a field, such as medicine, where a felony record could mean limited job prospects.
“People get things pardoned or expunged and then it’s off their record,” she said, “but, I think, it’s helpful that they also realize if they can’t get it pardoned or expunged and it’s just going to be there, it’s better to know that before you incur debt and spend time training for a profession that you’re not going to be able to likely practice in, so getting that knowledge, I think, is just as important as the successful outcome of getting something removed.”
Since Law for Learners expanded to the entire UW system, 328 students have been served.
At the UW-Green Bay, 18 students have received help with issues involving family law, driver’s license recovery, employment, immigration, public benefits, criminal records and housing.
Mark Olkowski, Associate Dean of Students at UW-Green Bay, said most students don’t even consider seeking legal advice because they think it is unaffordable.
Typically, Olkwoski said, students discover Law for Learners when talking to an advisor. He said Law for Learners has trained university employees to listen for concerns/stressors when meeting with students.
“Most students don’t come in and say, ‘I’m having this legal problem,’” he said. “It’s more like they are meeting with an advisor and they’re sharing some stressor, like a custody issue with an ex spouse or they are having issues with their landlord, and the advisor responds, ‘This sounds like you’re dealing with a legal issue. Would you like to talk to somebody that can help you with that?’
“Through that conversation, the academic advisor can say, ‘We actually have a service available and here’s the website; here’s how you can submit your request for assistance,’ and then they reach out and set up an appointment with the student,” said Olkowski.
Rapp said 65% of the intakes are from students who were informed by staff members.
“So we really count on the staff,” she said. “Most people don’t know that … they have a legal issue. They just know their landlord is being a jerk so they know they are not getting their security deposit back, or they have this criminal record and they can’t get a certain job. If you’re in a divorce, you obviously know it’s a legal matter, but there are a whole range of things people don’t even know it’s a legal issue.”
Most students, Rapp said, will only receive an hour of free service and rarely would Law for Learners represent a client in court.
“The range of services offered depends on the matter,” she said, “so if there is an expungement or a pardon, we may give somebody full-scale representation. If somebody has, like, a divorce or a family law matter, we’ll generally see them for an hour consultation. We can help them fill out forms. They can come back multiple times — sort of a serial, limited scope representation.”
More information on Law for Learners is available online at https://www.lawforlearners.com.
Students can also just search their institutions’ website. For example, a search of UW-Eau Claire website for Law for Learners led to a page for “Free, confidential legal help available for all UWEC students.”
Also on Youtube, there are several information videos available by searching “Lawyers for Learners” (the former name of Law for Learners). Videos cover such issues as tax tips, rental housing rights, modifying a legal custody or physical placement order in Wisconsin, getting security deposit back, driver’s license reinstatement, arrest and court records in Wisconsin and more.
Often Law for Learners is the first step. Lawyers connect clients with other organizations, such as Judicare Legal Aid, which provides free civil legal services to low income persons living in Northern Wisconsin and to Native Americans statewide.
But even when a student realizes he or she has a legal issue, Rapp said, they may have had a negative experience with the law or don’t even know where to start.
“There’s a lot of rural communities that are considered legal deserts in Wisconsin that don’t even really have any attorneys,” she said, “and then we know our legal aid organizations, even for eligible clients, have a turn-away rate of 50% or more a lot of times, just due to lack of capacity and funding. So all that’s in the mix.”
While private attorneys can charge $300 an hour for their services, Law for Learners services are free.
“Ascendum pretty much has been funding this through grants and other things,” said Rapp.
She noted that the UW system doesn’t contribute toward Law for Learners, but that could change.
Ascendium is committed to removing barriers to education and employment, Rapp said, to “help people get their criminal records cleaned up or get pardons or other things that can open up career paths that they wouldn’t otherwise have, and that, frankly, are in demand.”
Testimonies provided by Law for Learners include a UW graduate now a medical student who had a non-criminal ticket dismissed, who said, “Law for learners is such a generous program that really helped me when I thought I had no other actions.”
Another testimony provided is from a Madison College graduate who had worked with the unhoused and those “entangled with the criminal legal system,” who received two pardons with Law for Learners assistance, and said, “My previous conception of lawyers has been completely flipped. I am so grateful for people like yourself from a personal perspective as well as the hope it provides for our society in the years to come.”
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