David A. Santacroce is a clinical professor of law and the director of the Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic at the University of Michigan. He previously served as Michigan Law’s first associate dean for experiential education from 2013 to 2019. His primary interest is housing, consumer credit, and health care-related civil rights.

Santacroce is the founder and president of the Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education (CSALE), a nonprofit corporation housed at the Law School. CSALE is dedicated to the empirical study of law school clinics and externship programs and the promotion of related scholarship. With the aid of CSALE data, Santacroce has provided advice and assistance to deans and faculty members at more than 75 percent of US law schools on issues of clinic and externship design, pedagogy, and staffing.

Santacroce is also the president and founding member of Equal Justice America, a nonprofit corporation that provides grants to law students who volunteer to work with organizations providing civil legal services to the indigent.

He is a past chair of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Clinical Legal Education and former board member of the Clinical Legal Education Association.

He was also senior staff attorney for the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice in Detroit. While there, he managed a programmatic worker’s rights campaign under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act in trial and appellate courts throughout the United States. 

Related Information

Areas of Interest

Education
  • Connecticut College, BA
  • Pace University, JD, cum laude; Pace Law Review, managing editor
  • Columbia University, LLM, Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar

    • Recent Courses

    Featured Scholarship

    "2022-23 Survey of Applied Legal Education"

    The Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education
    SSRN

    "An Empirical Analysis of Clinical Legal Education at Middle Age"

    Journal of Legal Education
    MLaw RepositoryWWW HEIN

    "2019-20 Survey of Applied Legal Education"

    Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education
    SSRNWWW
    • Legal Writing and Research

    "Report on the 2016-2017 CSALE Survey of Applied Legal Education"

    Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education (CSALE)
    MLaw Repository
    • Legal Writing and Research
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    Activities
    June 2019
    Presented “The Power of Data and the U.S. Experiential Education Movement” at the Association for Canadian Clinical Legal Education National Conference, London, Ontario.
    May 2018
    Presented “Planning for Our Future by Understanding Our Past” at the AALS Clinical Conference, Chicago.
    May 2018
    Presented “Inside Out: Clinical Models in Practices” at the AALS Clinical Conference, Chicago.
    January 2018
    Presented “Access to Justice in the Age of Technology” at the AALS Annual Meeting, San Diego.
    May 2017
    Presented “Are We Teaching Transferable Skills?” at the AALS Clinical Conference, Denver.
    March 2017
    Presented “Civic Responsibility and Ethical Reasoning in Engaged Learning” at the University of Michigan Provost’s Seminar, Ann Arbor.
    January 2017
    Presented “Law School Curricula and Practice Readiness: Perfect Partners or Strange Bedfellows?” at the AALS Annual Meeting, San Francisco.

    News and Events

    Michigan Law Student speaking from a podium at a press conference.
    News

    Law School’s Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic Partners on Suit Against Online “Ghost Gun” Seller

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