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2026 Conference on Clinical Legal Education

Date: May 1 — 5, 2026
Location: Hilton Portland Downtown

Printer-friendly Agenda

11:00 AM - 7:00 PM AALS Registration
Type: AALS Programs
2:00 PM - 2:20 PM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Welcome
Type: AALS Programs
2:20 PM - 3:30 PM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Experiential Course Design
Type: AALS Programs
3:30 PM - 3:40 PM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Coffee with Colleagues
Type: AALS Programs
3:40 PM - 5:00 PM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Supervision Breakout: Clinic Supervision
Type: AALS Programs
3:40 PM - 5:00 PM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Supervision Breakout: Externship Supervision
Type: AALS Programs
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Happy Hour
Type: AALS Programs
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Optional Self-funded Group Dinners
Type: AALS Programs
7:30 AM - 9:00 AM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Coffee with Colleagues
Type: AALS Programs
7:30 AM - 7:00 PM AALS Registration
Type: AALS Programs
8:45 AM - 9:30 AM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Introduction to CLEA, AALS & Finding Your Community
Type: AALS Programs
9:30 AM - 10:30 AM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Experiential Seminar Design
Type: AALS Programs
10:30 AM - 10:40 AM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Coffee with Colleagues
Type: AALS Programs
10:40 AM - 11:20 AM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Breakouts - Assessment in Experiential Courses
Type: AALS Programs
10:40 AM - 11:20 AM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Breakouts: Case Rounds
Type: AALS Programs
11:30 AM - 12:00 PM Workshop for New Law School Clinical Teachers: Introduction to Scholarship
Type: AALS Programs
1:00 PM - 1:15 PM Welcome and Introduction
Type: AALS Programs
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM Opening Plenary: Engineering Democratic Renewal
Type: AALS Programs
2:45 PM - 3:00 PM Coffee with Colleagues
Type: AALS Programs
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM Working Group Discussions
Type: AALS Programs
4:45 PM - 5:45 PM Activating Students, Equipping Communities through Movement Lawyering Tools
Type: Concurrent Sessions
4:45 PM - 5:45 PM Concurrent Sessions
Type: AALS Programs
4:45 PM - 5:45 PM Cultivating Tomorrow’s Leaders of Democracy: The Externship Experience
Type: Concurrent Sessions
4:45 PM - 5:45 PM Defending Democracy in Multidisciplinary Clinical Education
Type: Concurrent Sessions
4:45 PM - 5:45 PM Engaging Students in the Long Game: Strategies for Multi-Year Cases and Community Lawyering
Type: Concurrent Sessions
4:45 PM - 5:45 PM Global Perspectives, Individualized Risks: Assessing the Risks Clinical Work for Students, Staff, and Clients
Type: Concurrent Sessions
4:45 PM - 5:45 PM Is Sharing Caring?: The Ethics of Sharing Clinic Stories
Type: Concurrent Sessions
4:45 PM - 5:45 PM Restorative Justice as a Pedagogy of Resistance: Global Perspectives for Strengthening Democracy in the Classroom and Beyond
Type: Concurrent Sessions
4:45 PM - 5:45 PM Teaching What They Know: Harnessing Students’ Lived Experiences To Enhance Clinical Legal Education
Type: Concurrent Sessions
4:45 PM - 5:45 PM Weathering the Storm: Preparing and Leading Experiential Programs to Meet Today’s Evolving Challenges
Type: Concurrent Sessions
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM AALS Reception Featuring Clinical Legal Education Posters
Type: AALS Programs
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Anchoring Democracy
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Section on Clinical Legal Education Executive Committee
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: At What Cost: Assessing the Pedagogical Risks of Resistance
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Clinical Pedagogies of Hope in Carceral Spaces
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Collaborating Across In-House Law Clinics
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Collaborative Justice: Engaging Community Partners to Help Lift-Up Underserved Communities
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinic: I Am Campaign
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Data, Democracy, and Accountability: Teaching Students to Track Misconduct
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Dogs as a Tool in Trauma Responsive Lawyering
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: From Spanish for Lawyers to Lawyering in Spanish
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Getting to the Heart of the Matter: Clinics and the Implementation of the California Racial Justice Act
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Harnessing Housing Clinics to Transform the Right to Counsel Movement
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: How does Law Impact Behavior? – A Comparative Study of Immigrant Healthcare Utilization in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain and Minnesota, U.S. Following Changes to Public Healthcare Program Eligibility
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Immigration Detention and Triage Lawyering: Innovating to Meet the Challenges of Unprecedented Immigration Enforcement and Detention
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Incorporating Social Work Into Clinical Pedagogy to Improve Outcomes for Clients & Students
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Law School with a Purpose: Using Public Interest Fellowship Proposals to Teach Professional Identity and Practice Development
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Maintaining, Modeling, and Teaching Wellness When the World is On Fire
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Property Justice: Drafting Practice Guides and Establishing New Practice Areas to Defend the Rights of Unhoused People
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Twenty Years of Righting Systemic Wrongs: The Mercer Habeas Project and Post-Conviction Advocacy as a Democratic Imperative
Type: Poster Presentation
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Poster Presentation: Walking with the People: Faith-Based Law School Clinics as Agents of Democratic Solidarity
Type: Poster Presentation
7:30 AM - 8:30 AM AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education Committees
Type: AALS Programs
7:30 AM - 8:30 AM CLEA Board Meeting and Board Candidate Meet and Greet
Type: Affiliate Events
7:30 AM - 9:00 AM Coffee with Colleagues
Type: AALS Programs
7:30 AM - 5:00 PM AALS Registration
Type: AALS Programs
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Contemplative Session/Meditation/Yoga
Type: AALS Programs
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Academic Freedom in Times of Threat: Protecting Experiential Educators’ Role in Case, Project, and Site Selection
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Best Practices for Supporting our LGBTQI+ Students & Clinicians
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Concurrent Sessions
Type: AALS Programs
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Decolonizing Case and Project Selection
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Legal Education and the Global Digital Rights Movement
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Mapping Justice: A Neighborhood-Based Model for Cross-Clinic Collaboration
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Power Hour: Law, Resistance, and Organizing in Experiential Education
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Responding to the Crisis in Legal Services for Immigrant Youth: A Transferable Model for Collaboration Among Externships, Clinics and Pro Bono Attorneys
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Stories from Occupied DC: Clinical Pedagogies of Resistance in Defense of Democracy
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Teaching Movement Lawyering in Clinical Programs in a Hostile Political Climate
Type: Concurrent Sessions
10:00 AM - 10:15 AM Coffee with Colleagues
Type: AALS Programs
10:15 AM - 11:45 AM Working Group Discussions
Type: AALS Programs
12:00 PM - 1:45 PM AALS Luncheon Featuring the Section on Legal Education M. Shanara Gilbert Award, Stephen J. Ellmann Memorial Clinical Scholarship Award, William Pincus Award, and Impact on the Externship Field Award Presentations; New Clinicians Slideshow
Type: AALS Programs
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Anchors in the Storm: The Stabilizing Role of Clinic Managers
Type: Concurrent Sessions
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Concurrent Sessions
Type: AALS Programs
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Cross-Clinic Collaborations to Challenge Unlawful Immigration Enforcement
Type: Concurrent Sessions
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Entrenching Ethical Legal Practice and Adherence to the Rule of Law Through Legal Education
Type: Concurrent Sessions
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Freeing Our Own: Campus Dissent and the Fight to Protect Students and Scholars from Ideological Detention
Type: Concurrent Sessions
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM From Shelter to Strength: Designing Housing Justice Clinics as Strongholds of Democratic Resilience
Type: Concurrent Sessions
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Melting the Walls: Creating Learning Communities of Law Students and Incarcerated People via Inside-Out Teaching
Type: Concurrent Sessions
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Strategies for Strengthening Students’ Legal Writing in Clinics Through Feedback
Type: Concurrent Sessions
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Taking Reflection Off the Page to Engage Students
Type: Concurrent Sessions
2:00 PM - 5:15 PM Clinicians of Color Workshop
Type: Workshop
3:00 PM - 3:15 PM Coffee with Colleagues
Type: AALS Programs
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM Beyond the Black Box: Teaching Ethical and Effective Use of AI in Clinical Legal Education
Type: Concurrent Sessions
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM Centering Humanity: Conversations Between Clinicians Across Borders
Type: Concurrent Sessions
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM Combatting Political Interference in Clinic Representation: Issues and Resources for Clinical Practice
Type: Concurrent Sessions
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM Concurrent Sessions
Type: AALS Programs
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM Don’t @ Me: Teaching Students to Navigate Tough Conversations Inside and Outside of the Classroom
Type: Concurrent Sessions
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM Holding the Line: Assessing the Strength of The Clinical Community
Type: Concurrent Sessions
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM Looking to Local Government: How Local Government - Law School Partnerships Can Help Anchor Democracy and Deepen Student Learning
Type: Concurrent Sessions
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM Protecting Your 501(c)(3): Safeguarding Nonprofits as Anchors of Democracy
Type: Concurrent Sessions
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM Shaping Students’ Critical Thinking: Integrating a Problem-Posing Approach into Clinical Spaces
Type: Concurrent Sessions
4:30 PM - 5:00 PM Backbone: Teaching Professional Responsibility in Clinic to Build a Resilient Lawyer Identity
Type: Lightning Sessions
4:30 PM - 5:00 PM Case Theory and Narrative as Anti-Authoritarian Praxis
Type: Lightning Sessions
4:30 PM - 5:00 PM Clients as Teachers: Integrating the Voices of Formerly Incarcerated into Second-Chance Advocacy Clinics
Type: Lightning Sessions
4:30 PM - 5:00 PM Curricular Strategic Planning: Optimizing Course Offerings to Meet This Moment
Type: Lightning Sessions
4:30 PM - 5:00 PM Lawyering Skills Self-Assessment Tool: Helping Externship Students Set Goals and Measure Progress
Type: Lightning Sessions
4:30 PM - 5:00 PM Lightning Sessions
Type: AALS Programs
4:30 PM - 5:00 PM State-Level Strategies for Defending Democracy: Lessons from Oregon’s Public Defense and Universal Immigrant Representation Clinical Initiatives
Type: Lightning Sessions
4:30 PM - 5:00 PM The Advocate is Already Within: Identifying Practical Tools for Helping Students Achieve Justice by Connecting Their Voice, Happiness, and Authentic Values
Type: Lightning Sessions
4:30 PM - 5:00 PM The Power of Pay: Equity, Opportunity, and the Externship Experience
Type: Lightning Sessions
7:30 AM - 8:30 AM A Coffee Chat for New Clinicians hosted by the Membership, Outreach & Training (MOT) Committee
Type: Committee Meeting
7:30 AM - 8:30 AM AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education Committees
Type: AALS Programs
7:30 AM - 9:00 AM Coffee with Colleagues
Type: AALS Programs
7:30 AM - 4:00 PM AALS Registration
Type: AALS Programs
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Contemplative/Meditation/Yoga
Type: AALS Programs
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Advocacy in Unjust Systems: Teaching Lawyering Skills for Compromised Rule of Law
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Beyond Client Selection: Teaching Democracy and Dialogue in the Clinic
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Clinical Teaching Through Crisis
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Concurrent Sessions
Type: AALS Programs
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Externship Adventures in the Age of AI: Teaching Tomorrow’s Lawyers Today
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Fostering Effective and Client-Centered Advocates When Representing Confined Individuals and Those At Risk of Confinement
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Hear Us Out: Leveraging Economic Empowerment in Support of Social Change
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM The Boundaries of Autonomy: A Survey of Clinic Practices Protecting Academic Freedom
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Trauma-Informed Educators of Today for Trauma-Informed Legal Practitioners of Tomorrow
Type: Concurrent Sessions
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM What Medical-Legal Partnership Clinics Know and You Should Too: Interdisciplinary Lawyering in an Anti-Disciplinary Time
Type: Concurrent Sessions
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM Clinical Collective Bargaining – Report Out from Harvard Clinicians’ Fight for a Fair Contract
Type: Lightning Sessions
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM From Anecdotes to Evidence: How and Why to Collect Empirical Evidence About Your Program
Type: Lightning Sessions
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM Holding the Line Through Clinic Transitions
Type: Lightning Sessions
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM Illuminating the Hidden Curriculum: Ethical Dilemmas in the Externship
Type: Lightning Sessions
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM Interactive Methods: A Student Activity for Conveying Client Representation Considerations in Transactional Lawyering
Type: Lightning Sessions
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM Lightning Sessions
Type: AALS Programs
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM Partnerships in Practice: Enhancing Legal Education and Access to Justice Through Community Collaboration
Type: Lightning Sessions
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM Resistance to Federal Family Separation Using Legal Tools & A Community Organizing Ethos
Type: Lightning Sessions
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM Transnational Legal Clinics: Bridging Borders in Immigration Law and Human Rights
Type: Lightning Sessions
10:15 AM - 10:45 AM We’re All Tech Lawyers: A Toolkit for “Non-Technology” Clinicians
Type: Lightning Sessions
10:45 AM - 11:00 AM Coffee with Colleagues
Type: AALS Programs
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Working Group Discussions
Type: AALS Programs
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM Lunch on Your Own
Type: AALS Programs
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Beyond Placement: How Externship Faculty Advocate for Students Inside and Outside the Workplace
Type: Concurrent Sessions
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Collaboration as a Core Pedagogy in Times of Democratic Challenge
Type: Concurrent Sessions
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Concurrent Session
Type: AALS Programs
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Cross-Clinical Collaboration and Community Building: An Interdisciplinary Approach
Type: Concurrent Sessions
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Showing Up with Intention: Building Affirming Professional Identities for Trans, Non-Binary and Gender Non-Conforming Law Students
Type: Concurrent Sessions
2:00 PM - 5:15 PM Community Lawyering as a Beacon of Democracy: Bridging Environmental and Anti-Trafficking Efforts
Type: Workshop
2:00 PM - 5:15 PM Navigating the Complexities of the Clinical Teaching Market
Type: Workshop
2:00 PM - 5:15 PM Repair, Reparations, Rest, Recover
Type: Workshop
2:00 PM - 5:15 PM Risk Assessment and Risk Management for Law School Clinics
Type: Workshop
2:00 PM - 5:15 PM Scholarship Support Workshop
Type: Workshop
2:00 PM - 5:15 PM The AAPI Clinicians Workshop: Creating the Groundwork and Toolkits for AAPI Clinicians to Help Defend Democracy
Type: Workshop
2:00 PM - 5:15 PM Workshops
Type: AALS Programs
3:00 PM - 3:15 PM Coffee with Colleagues
Type: AALS Programs
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM Concurrent Sessions
Type: AALS Programs
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM Disability Supports in Experiential Learning: Inclusion in and out of the Classroom
Type: Concurrent Sessions
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM How Clinicians Can Use Adaptive Leadership to Navigate Challenges to Democracy, Legal Education, and Vulnerable Communities
Type: Concurrent Sessions
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM Local Lawyer Leaders - Programs to Recruit, Educate, Develop, and Place New Lawyers to Serve as Leaders in Their Rural Communities
Type: Concurrent Sessions
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM Resilience in Action: Clinic Responses to Immigration Raids and Threats to Democracy
Type: Concurrent Sessions
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Community Gathering: Allied Legal Professional Programs
Type: Community Gatherings
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Community Gathering: Clinicians with Disabilities
Type: Community Gatherings
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Community Gathering: Externships Colleagues Gathering
Type: Community Gatherings
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Community Gathering: Florida Clinicians
Type: Community Gatherings
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Community Gathering: Lan Su Chinese Garden Portland Visit
Type: Community Gatherings
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Community Gathering: Legal Clinic Administrators
Type: Community Gatherings
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Community Gathering: LGBTQ+ Clinicians
Type: Community Gatherings
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Community Gathering: Second-Chance Work
Type: Community Gatherings
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Community Gathering: Texas Clinicians
Type: Community Gatherings
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Community Gatherings
Type: AALS Programs
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM Reception Hosted by Lewis and Clark Law School: Wine & Walk in the Woods
Type: AALS Programs
7:30 AM - 8:30 AM AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education Committees
Type: AALS Programs
7:30 AM - 9:00 AM Coffee with Colleagues
Type: AALS Programs
7:30 AM - 11:00 AM AALS Registration
Type: AALS Programs
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Contemplative/Meditation/Yoga
Type: AALS Programs
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education Works in Progress
Type: AALS Programs
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM Bellow Scholars Reports on Projects
Type: AALS Programs
10:30 AM - 10:45 AM Coffee with Colleagues
Type: AALS Programs
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM Beyond 303(c): Reclaiming Pro Bono and Clinical Work as a Space for Cross-Cultural Inquiry and Structural Critique
Type: Concurrent Sessions
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM Concurrent Sessions
Type: AALS Programs
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM Navigating Student Resistance While Keeping Our Clients Centered
Type: Concurrent Sessions
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM No One Can Do It Alone: Teaching Collaboration to Promote Wellbeing and Improve Problem-Solving
Type: Concurrent Sessions
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM Professional Identity and Responsibility as Resistance: Teaching Ethics in an Age of Retrenchment /Zealous Advocacy: Modeling and Teaching Legal Ethics in a Climate of Fear
Type: Concurrent Sessions
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM Storytelling as Advocacy: Expanding Clinical Pedagogy and Silenced Voices
Type: Concurrent Sessions
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM Subversive Pedagogy in A Repressive Era: The Value of Clinics & Externships as Laboratories of Restraint
Type: Concurrent Sessions
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM Under Pressure: Expanding Students’ Skill Sets to Defend the Rule of Law and Recalibrate the Clinical Social Justice Mission
Type: Concurrent Sessions
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM Using the First Amendment to Protect Local Democracy
Type: Concurrent Sessions
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Across States, Across Institutions: Co-Teaching Clinical Law as a Practice Model
Type: Concurrent Sessions
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Concurrent Sessions
Type: AALS Programs
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Cross-Clinic Co-Teaching as a Method for Enhancing Students’ Knowledge Transfer in Clinical Legal Education
Type: Concurrent Sessions
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Democracy, Professional Identity, and the Experiential Curriculum
Type: Concurrent Sessions
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Holding the Line: Training Lawyers to Defend Democracy Through Clinical Practice
Type: Concurrent Sessions
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Immigration Clinics in Federal Court
Type: Concurrent Sessions
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Minding the Gaps: Ideas for Building Collaborative Capacity in the Face of Federal Institutional Deterioration
Type: Concurrent Sessions
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM The Interdisciplinary Model: Enhancing Clinical Curriculum and Advocacy with the Help of Social Workers
Type: Concurrent Sessions
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Training Ethical and Informed Students Amid Evolving Language and Topic Limitations
Type: Concurrent Sessions
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM What's Remorse Got to Do With Democracy? Everything
Type: Concurrent Sessions

Event Sessions Go Back

2026 Conference on Clinical Legal Education

Event Sessions
Go Back