Spring 2025: Criminal Defense Clinic

By Professor Patrick Metze, Director of the Criminal Defense Clinic. Originally published in the Spring 2025 Texas Tech Law Newsletter.

Year-end report on the 2024-2025 Criminal Defense Clinic, including caseload, the Clifford Brown Award to Sydney Allison, RGDS Champions Kalee Gore and Aiya Almzayen, and the traditional graduation farewell.

From the Desk of Patrick S. Metze – Director, Criminal Defense Clinic

As is our custom, the students in the 2024-2025 Criminal Defense Clinic (CDC) were busy all year representing real people in real cases in real time. This year, the students handled 123 cases for 80 clients. Of these cases, 36 are still pending, 40 were disposed of through some type of negotiated plea, and 47 cases were dismissed. Cases consisted of 103 misdemeanors and 20 felonies. This is an average student caseload of almost 25 cases and 16 clients per student, which is double the number of clients and cases promised in the clinic catalogue.

This column is reproduced only in brief. Read the whole thing in the Spring 2025 issue at Texas Tech Law.