Striking the Balance: Teaching Social Justice in Higher-Volume Clinics

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Session Type: Lightning Sessions

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This presentation responds to the conference theme of “Fortifying our Foundation and Building for the Future” by examining the high volume clinic’s instructional design and providing an opportunity for consideration of how the high volume clinic contributes to teaching foundational lawyering skills related to social justice. Although many clinicians have embraced a small case load clinical design in order to allow students to “practice law in slow motion.” Not all clinicians choose a small case load model. Some clinicians operate higher case load clinics by choice, understanding the high case load clinic to provide experiences most similar to practice. Other clinicians operate higher case load clinics by necessity, meeting the terms of external soft money sources, billing for services to make budgetary contributions, or for the altruistic goal of fulfilling the unmet legal needs of the surrounding the community. Higher case load clinics are not without pedagogical value nor do they necessarily sacrifice student learning about social justice. The presenter will share experiences of teaching social justice inside high-volume civil and criminal defense clinics and through experiential learning programs that prize community service and “practice replication” clinical models.