CED Clinics and CED Practitioners in Society

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Session Type: Lightning Sessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Location: N/A

Room: The Raven Room

Floor: Lobby Level

There are tens of thousands of criminal defense lawyers, family lawyers, immigration lawyers, and tax lawyers, but no more than a few hundred people call themselves “community economic development lawyers.” To a greater degree than other clinics, CED clinics rely on the idea that clinical education is transferable. But what is the relationship between CED clinics and those few hundred CED practitioners? In 2022, Prof. Haber left a CED clinic that he taught for over a decade to accept a position as the Director of the CED Program at Brooklyn Legal Services Corp. A (“Brooklyn A”). Together with his Deputy Director, Prof. Weidmann, they expanded the CED Program to 23 people, probably the largest pro bono transactional CED program in the country—one heavily reliant on a grant from the Eric Adams administration to support struggling small businesses. Together, they began remaking the CED Program: balancing grant-funded work supporting small businesses, rebuilding Brooklyn A’s historic practice with non-profit CED clients and affordable housing developers, and creating a new practice representing movement groups doing mutual aid and organizing for social change. But the challenges of trying to rebuild a CED program that centers its vision around community struggles was incredibly fraught in the context of a deeply hierarchical legal services organization committed to close collaboration with city agencies. This presentation will discuss questions this experience raised about the relationship of CED clinics to real-world CED practices, including: • Should we teach clinics differently when our students are largely not going to be working in our narrow practice area?  • What is the responsibility of CED clinics to private non-profit or low-bono CED legal practices?  • Should CED clinics aim to fill gaps in services that “real world” CED practices cannot fill, or try to mirror the CED job opportunities that students might pursue?