University of South Dakota

Wendy Hess is a Visiting Assistant Professor and Director of the Fundamental Legal Skills and Legal Writing Program. Before coming to USD, she coordinated the Critical Legal Skills program at the Phoenix School of Law where she taught Academic Legal Skills, Mastering Legal Skills, and Interviewing & Counseling. Her legal practice experience includes: directing the Prison Reform Project at the Public Justice Center, a non-profit law office in Baltimore, MD, where she also worked on educational access for children in foster care and enforcement of freedom of information laws; serving as the Francis Murnaghan Appellate Advocacy Fellow where she worked on poverty law and civil rights appellate cases in state and federal courts; and provision of civil legal services to prisoners and pretrial detainees in Central Pennsylvania with the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project. She also completed two judicial clerkships, one for a judge on the Maryland Court of Appeals and the other for a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Bar Admissions: Maryland, Washington DC

Legal Skills, Interviewing & Counseling, Legal Writing

Law Teaching Methods & Practices, Legal Education Reform, Law Student & Lawyer Wellness, Juvenile Transfer

• JD, Law, University of Denver College of Law, 1998
• BA, Psychology; Government & Politics, University of Maryland, 1995