After years of preparation, two products of Yale Law School stood before the Connecticut Supreme Court, arguing on behalf of the poorest public school students in one of the country's richest states.

Plaintiffs' legal fees for the case brought the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding would have cost an estimated $5 million to $7 million if handled by private lawyers.

Yale law students Neil Weare and David Noah and a dozen classmates spent thousands of hours interviewing plaintiffs, conducting research, drafting briefs and developing oral arguments, for free.

"We had a healthy sense of nerves," Weare said. "When you have potentially the future of Connecticut's schoolchildren resting on this argument today, there's a lot riding on it."

Weare and Noah are among the 80 percent of Yale law students who participate in clinics where they represent real people with real issues in courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Students have represented low-income tenants in eviction proceedings, foreign nationals seeking asylum who have been detained, and family members involved in abuse, neglect and parental right termination proceedings.

Other law schools do similar pro bono work, though few boast the caliber of future attorneys offered by Yale, ranked this year by U.S. News and World Report as the top law school in the U.S.

Weare and Noah argued Tuesday that Connecticut has schools in some low-income districts where students are not being prepared for tomorrow's workplace, higher education or full civic participation. They contend the state constitution guarantees not just an education, but an adequate one.

"We were so well-prepared. We had such an amazing team that, I think we felt that any possible argument that we could make that was going to convince the court, we had behind us," Noah said.

Tuesday's arguments stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the Yale students in 2005 against Gov. M. Jodi Rell and other state officials.

Both Noah and Weare were part of the original team that took up the case after being approached in 2004 by the education coalition.

It's unclear when the Connecticut Supreme Court will decide. The students want the high court to order a trial in state court, where they can challenge the state's assertions that it provides adequate education to Connecticut children.

A Superior Court judge last year determined that the state's constitution did not guarantee a right to an adequate or suitable education, the position taken by the state.

Gregory D'Aurio, assistant attorney general, argued Tuesday that the plaintiffs were attempting to create a right within the constitution that doesn't exist. He argued that Connecticut's constitution simply offers students an equal right to attend free public schools.

That stance drew questions from several justices, including Justice Joette Katz, who asked D'Aurio, "So as long as it's equally bad, it's OK?"

D'Aurio said "in the worst of all worlds" all children would be entitled to an equally inadequate education. But he said it's up to the General Assembly to decide whether educational standards are appropriate and whether changes need to be made.

The Yale students disagreed, saying that children in poor communities may not have the wherewithal to lobby the state legislature to make changes in education funding and how it is spent. The courts are well suited, they argued, to protect needy children.

"In some schools, students aren't learning. When they graduate, they simply can't read," Weare said in court. "The state seems to be arguing that so long as schools are equally bad, the constitutional obligations are being met."

Copyright 2008 Associated Press