The American Bar Association’s Legal Education Police Practices Consortium was created by deans of ABA-accredited law schools in 2020 in response to police killings and use of force in primarily Black communities. Besides learning about research, the students’ work will teach interpersonal skills, too, says Richard Bierschbach, the dean of the Wayne State University Law School who also is on the consortium’s advisory committee. So far, 59 schools are participating. “It’s a great way for law students to understand the realities of trying to get information from police departments and other similar bodies,” says Bierschbach, adding that sometimes agencies don’t want to share information, and other times they simply can’t do it or don’t have it “because of years of bad infrastructure or systems. In law school, before you do this kind of work, you might think, ‘Why are they stonewalling?’ With this project, you can get in on the ground and see what the world’s actually like.”