Doug Blaze Interview: University of Tennessee Law, Admissions, Experiential Learning, and Legal Careers

^{Last Updated: September 2026}

Editor’s Note: This interview with Doug Blaze reflects his perspectives and the University of Tennessee College of Law as they existed at the time of the original interview. References to rankings, employment outcomes, programs, faculty hiring, economic conditions, and other time-sensitive matters should be understood in their historical context. This updated version organizes the interview around enduring lessons about law school admissions, legal education, experiential learning, and career development.

Doug Blaze’s perspective on legal education centers on a straightforward idea: law schools should prepare students not only to understand the law, but also to use it effectively.

In this Top-Law-Schools interview, Blaze discusses what makes a strong law school applicant, how prospective students should evaluate schools, why experiential learning matters, the role of clinics and public service, and how law students can prepare for successful legal careers.

Although some details of the original interview reflect the legal market of its time, many of Blaze’s observations remain relevant to prospective law students deciding where to attend, current students preparing for practice, and graduates considering their long-term professional direction.

For current information about the school, readers can also review the University of Tennessee College of Law profile.

What Makes a Strong Law School Applicant?

When asked about the ideal candidate for the University of Tennessee College of Law, Blaze emphasized qualities that go beyond grades and test scores.

He described strong candidates as intellectually capable, motivated, engaged, and able to contribute something distinctive to the law school community through their experiences, education, perspectives, backgrounds, or goals.

The broader lesson for applicants is important: a law school application should communicate more than academic credentials.

Admissions committees also want to understand:

What experiences have shaped you?
Why do you want to study law?
What perspective will you bring to your classmates?
How have your academic, professional, community, or personal experiences prepared you for legal education?
What do you hope to accomplish with a law degree?

Applicants should therefore think of their application as a coherent story rather than a collection of unrelated credentials.

How Should Students Prepare Before Law School?

Blaze encouraged prospective students to pursue a broad undergraduate education and gain varied experiences before beginning law school.

Rather than believing that there is one required “pre-law” path, students can benefit from studying subjects that develop analytical thinking, writing, communication, research, and intellectual curiosity.

Professional, volunteer, leadership, military, civic, and community experiences may also provide perspectives that become valuable in the classroom and eventually in legal practice.

Equally important, students should not view preparation for law school as requiring them to spend every available moment building a legal résumé. Blaze’s advice also emphasized developing as a well-rounded person and maintaining interests beyond academics.

That broader perspective can help applicants arrive at law school with maturity, curiosity, and experiences they can draw upon when studying complicated legal and social problems.

What Should Applicants Consider When Choosing a Law School?

Choosing where to earn a J.D. can affect finances, professional opportunities, geographic mobility, personal life, and career direction for years.

Blaze encouraged students to look beyond rankings alone.

Among the considerations he identified were:

The mission and educational priorities of the law school
The quality and accessibility of the faculty
The strength of the student community
Opportunities for practical legal training
Geographic location
Cost of living
Overall affordability
Alumni involvement
The environment in which students will spend three demanding years

One particularly durable point from the interview is the importance of community.

Law school is academically intense, and applicants should consider whether a school provides an environment where students can work hard while still receiving meaningful support from professors, classmates, administrators, and alumni.

Applicants comparing schools may also find the Top-Law-Schools Choosing a Law School Forum useful for discussions about costs, employment outcomes, location, student life, and other decision factors.

Why Experiential Learning Matters in Legal Education

Experiential education was a recurring theme throughout Blaze’s discussion of Tennessee Law.

He emphasized the importance of connecting legal theory with practical application. Studying appellate cases, statutes, legal doctrine, and theory is essential, but lawyers must ultimately learn how to apply those concepts to real clients, negotiations, disputes, transactions, and professional problems.

Experiential learning can take many forms, including:

Legal clinics
Externships
Field placements
Simulations
Advocacy exercises
Transactional projects
Legal research and writing
Pro bono work
Summer legal employment

These opportunities help students develop judgment as well as knowledge.

They can also help students discover whether particular practice areas or work environments genuinely interest them before they commit to a career path.

LawCrossing’s guide to career readiness for law students similarly emphasizes developing practical skills, professional communication, legal workplace awareness, and other competencies before graduation.

Clinical Legal Education at Tennessee Law

Blaze had a particularly strong connection to clinical education, having directed Tennessee’s clinical programs before and during his leadership roles.

At the time of the original interview, he highlighted Tennessee Law’s long tradition of clinical education and described opportunities involving areas such as housing, immigration, environmental matters, business transactions, mediation, domestic violence, wills, education law, and government placements.

Specific clinic offerings naturally change over time, so prospective students should consult the law school directly for current programs.

The enduring value of clinical education, however, remains clear.

Clinics allow students to confront the realities that cannot always be replicated in a traditional classroom: working with clients, dealing with incomplete facts, managing deadlines, exercising professional judgment, communicating difficult information, and understanding the ethical responsibilities of lawyers.

For students interested in becoming practice-ready graduates, the availability and accessibility of experiential opportunities should therefore be an important part of evaluating a law school.

Why Legal Writing and Practical Skills Matter

Another theme in Blaze’s interview was the importance of legal writing.

Writing is fundamental to virtually every area of legal practice. Lawyers must be able to organize complicated information, identify relevant legal rules, analyze facts, communicate conclusions, and persuade different audiences.

Students should therefore treat legal writing as a professional skill rather than simply another first-year course.

The same principle applies to research, oral communication, negotiation, organization, problem-solving, and professional judgment.

LawCrossing’s Law Student Career Toolkit discusses many of these competencies and explains why students benefit from developing them well before entering full-time practice.

Public Service and Life Experience in Law School Admissions

Blaze also discussed the value of military, civic, community, and public-service experiences.

Applicants who have served in the military, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, community organizations, educational programs, nonprofits, or other service-oriented roles may bring valuable perspectives to a law school class.

The significance of these experiences is not merely that they add another line to an application.

Meaningful service can demonstrate qualities such as:

Responsibility
Leadership
Commitment
Resilience
Teamwork
Exposure to diverse communities
An understanding of institutional and social challenges

Applicants should explain how important experiences influenced their development rather than simply listing them.

That principle can be especially useful when preparing a personal statement or résumé because admissions officers are generally trying to understand the person behind the credentials.

Law School Culture and Community Matter

Blaze described Tennessee Law as a close community where students could compete academically while still supporting one another.

That distinction is worth considering at any law school.

Prospective students often focus heavily on numerical measures such as rankings, LSAT medians, GPA ranges, tuition, and employment percentages. Those metrics can be important, but they do not capture the entire student experience.

Applicants should also ask:

Are professors accessible?
Do students collaborate?
Are mentoring opportunities available?
Is there a strong alumni network?
Are students encouraged to participate in clinics, journals, organizations, or pro bono work?
Does the environment fit the way I learn and work?

Because students may spend three years immersed in this environment, institutional culture can have a substantial effect on both their educational experience and professional development.

Rankings Should Be One Factor, Not the Entire Decision

Blaze also addressed law school rankings.

His perspective was that schools should concentrate on providing high-quality, affordable legal education rather than allowing rankings to become the sole measure of institutional success.

For applicants, there is a related lesson.

Rankings may provide useful comparative information, but they should be considered alongside factors such as:

Total cost of attendance
Scholarships and conditions attached to them
Employment outcomes
Bar passage
Geographic placement
Practice-area opportunities
Alumni networks
Clinical programs
Faculty access
Student culture
Personal career goals

A lower-cost school with strong placement in a student’s preferred region, for example, could present a different value proposition from a more expensive school with a broader national reputation.

The appropriate decision depends on each applicant’s objectives, financial circumstances, and acceptable level of risk.

Preparing for Legal Employment While in Law School

The original interview took place during the economic disruption following the 2008 financial crisis, so some of the employment discussion was necessarily tied to that historical period.

Nevertheless, Blaze emphasized a principle that remains relevant in changing legal markets: flexibility.

Students entering the profession may discover that their original preferred location, employer type, or practice area is not immediately available. Developing multiple options can make the transition from law school to practice easier.

Students can strengthen their career prospects by:

Obtaining practical experience
Building relationships with professors and alumni
Participating in clinics or externships
Developing strong writing skills
Networking with attorneys
Exploring several practice areas
Learning about different employer types
Starting career planning well before graduation

LawCrossing’s Law Student Career Framework for Long-Term Success provides additional guidance on combining academics, practical experience, networking, skill development, and career planning.

Students can also review How Law Students Can Shape Career Outcomes Through Early Choices for strategies involving coursework, experience, networking, and professional preparation.

Making the Most of 1L and 2L Summers

Summer experiences can become an important bridge between classroom learning and professional practice.

Blaze noted that Tennessee students historically pursued a range of summer options, including coursework, clinics, field placements, law firm employment, government positions, public-interest work, and international programs.

The specific opportunities available to students change over time, but the broader strategy remains applicable.

Students should approach each summer with a goal.

That goal may be to:

Explore a potential practice area
Develop legal research and writing skills
Gain client contact
Experience litigation or transactional work
Build professional references
Learn how a law office operates
Explore government or public-interest practice
Develop relationships in a target geographic market

Not every summer position needs to determine a student’s entire career. Sometimes the most valuable result of an experience is discovering what type of work the student does—or does not—want to pursue.

Finding Direction in Your Legal Career

Perhaps the most enduring advice from Blaze’s interview concerns career direction.

His message to applicants and law students was essentially to identify the work that genuinely engages them while remaining flexible enough to explore opportunities.

Law students do not necessarily need to know their ultimate practice area during their first semester.

Instead, they can gradually develop career clarity by taking courses, talking with practicing attorneys, participating in clinics, completing internships, attending events, researching practice areas, and reflecting on the types of problems they most enjoy solving.

LawCrossing’s Building Career Clarity: A Practical Guide for Law Students explores this process through self-assessment, practical experience, mentorship, coursework, and early exposure to different legal careers.

Key Lessons from Doug Blaze’s Interview

Although the original conversation occurred in 2009, several principles remain useful for prospective and current law students:

Build an application that communicates who you are, not just your numbers.
Gain diverse experiences before and during law school.
Evaluate law schools based on fit, cost, location, culture, academics, and professional opportunities.
Look for meaningful experiential learning opportunities.
Take legal writing and practical skills seriously.
Use clinics, externships, summer work, and pro bono opportunities to explore legal practice.
Develop relationships with classmates, professors, alumni, and practicing lawyers.
Begin career planning before graduation.
Remain flexible as the legal market changes.
Look for areas of legal work that genuinely interest and motivate you.

The strongest legal education is ultimately one that helps students connect intellectual development with practical capability and a clear sense of professional purpose.

For more information about Tennessee Law, see the University of Tennessee College of Law profile on Top-Law-Schools.

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Relevant Top-Law-Schools Forum Discussions

The following discussions provide additional perspectives from applicants, students, and graduates. Forum posts represent individual users’ experiences and opinions and should not be treated as official school information.

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