From her west side home, former big-city dweller Kimberly Thomas gets a kick out of walking to her office at the august, ivied University of Michigan Law School each day.

The solid credential of a 1996 Harvard Law School degree, magna cum laude, helped land her a job as assistant professor of clinical and criminal law here this past January. So did her real-world experience as a trial attorney defending indigent clients in Philadelphia. But it was her gift for teaching that made Thomas stand out for a law school search committee that screened hundreds of applications for the post.

"Her record is spectacular, but we get plenty of those," says Bridget McCormack, associate dean for clinical affairs at the law school. "She impressed us as being able to communicate really well with students. She was very open, very able to see many sides of a given issue."

Thomas was hired in part to teach in the law school's General Civil/Criminal Clinic, an intensive program in which students learn courtroom skills and take on real clients from underserved populations. She thinks her new job is a great fit. She's neither a corporate big-paycheck kind of attorney nor an ivory-tower scholar. She's an advocate for quality legal services for people with little or no money. For her, the U-M law school's supportive programs for students in public interest law were a big drawing card.

In the clinic, Thomas goes to court with her students. Students present the arguments, but one of the clinic's six faculty members must oversee the cases.

Professors also meet weekly or more with students individually to talk about the cases. "For me, it's the perfect balance between having one foot in the real world and one in teaching," Thomas says. She also teaches criminal law.

Thomas' most recent stop before arriving at the U-M was a 3.5 year stint as a trial attorney handling felony and misdemeanor cases for the Defender Association of Philadelphia.

The experience was "crazy and wonderful," she says, with too many clients and too little time. She felt a great responsibility representing her poor clients, many accused of drug crimes or offenses like breaking and entering, among whom mental illness was common.

"You're sort of the last step for them," she says.

Now, she's one of several law school professors who give law students a chance to feel that same sense of responsibility. Students sign up for a seven-credit public service course through the law school clinic. They learn courtroom skills in one segment, then get to represent real clients without means to hire their own attorneys in tenant/landlord disputes and other real cases before county and city courts. Some clients are referred by local courts, or by agencies like SAFE House. Some walk in the door of the clinic.

Third-year law student Amer Pharaon represented clients in several criminal cases under Thomas' guidance. "There were times when I felt overwhelmed. You want to do a great job....

"She would be able to strike a balance between telling you and helping you figure out what to do, and also stepping back and letting you do things by yourself, and encouraging you to take the initiative. The help and the autonomy really help you feel more confident."

He says the seven-credit experience last term "was probably the best thing I did in law school."

Thomas is still adjusting to life in a small city that she says offers a lot for its size. A runner, she's found plenty of convenient routes.

She finds big-city pleasures in Detroit. "I may go to Detroit more than the average Ann Arborite," she says with a smile. She loves the Eastern Market: "It's the best in the country."

She misses the ocean. The Great Lakes are gorgeous, she says, but not the same. And she can't let go of Maryland basketball. She grew up in Maryland and got her undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland.

But Thomas is not stranger to Michigan. After majoring in journalism in college, she landed her first job as a reporter covering local government and other stories for The Detroit News. The newspaper strike about a year later helped end her newspaper career. "I made a decision I wanted to advocate rather than report," she says.

She briefly taught math at a small Catholic school in Hamtramck as she formed her plans to go to law school. "I wanted to be someone who was able to act on behalf of poor people," she says. At Harvard, she sought out internships in Cambodia, South Africa and Washington, where she worked for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

In her research and teaching, Thomas focuses on the effects of incarceration. She's aware of the plight of mentally ill people when their lives intersect with the justice system.

"The fewer services there are for the mentally ill, the more will end up in prison," she says. There are new problems when mentally ill prisoners complete their sentences, often landing in situations where they no longer get their medications regularly.

She advocates better services for people making the transition back into society after being incarcerated. Increased attention to this is cost-effective, because it reduces the odds a person will land back in prison, she argues. "If you don't see people come back, you really are going to save money."