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Best Law Professor

By: dmc-admin//March 16, 2009//

Best Law Professor

By: dmc-admin//March 16, 2009//

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Daniel D. Blinka, Marquette University Law School

ImageA good voter base helps when it comes to getting votes for best law professor.

And Marquette University professor Daniel D. Blinka certainly has that, as a result of teaching essential courses like Evidence, Professional Responsibility, Criminal Law, and Criminal Procedure.

Blinka has been teaching law at Marquette since 1985, after spending seven years in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office.

Giving good advice to students when it comes to course selection helps, too. Many law students, like Blinka himself, are the first in their families to attend law school or even college, and can use guidance when it comes to taking courses that they will actually use in their legal careers.

Blinka describes his teaching style as “rigorous, yet relaxed.”

“I want students to participate. Nothing is gained by intimidating students, but I want the coursework to be rigorous,” Blinka says.

Students can’t escape his influence even after they become practicing attorneys. Blinka is the author of must-have books for Wisconsin litigators, including West’s “Wisconsin Evidence,” and the “Wisconsin Civil Rules Handbook.”

The Wisconsin Law Journal’s Best Of recognition isn’t Blinka’s only acknowledgment as a top law professor. On five occasions, he has been awarded the James Ghiardi Award for Outstanding Classroom Teaching, Student Body Support, and Scholarship from Marquette Law students, and in 2000, he won the university-wide Robert and Mary Gettel Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence.

Blinka says he doesn’t know exactly what makes a good law professor, “but whatever it is, it has to make students pay attention. And I learned how to do that as a trial lawyer.”

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