Track 2: The New Normal in Public Interest Lawyering: Small Business and Transactional Clinics at the Forefront of Change

Go Back

Session Type: AALS Programs

Session Capacity: N/A

Location: N/A

Room: N/A

Floor: N/A

Over 85 transactional and business-related law clinics have
developed in the last several years, most of which are represented at the AALS
Conference on Clinical Legal Education. The number is growing annually, with
business-related clinics comprising the majority of new clinics added to
existing law school clinical programs in both 2014 and 2015. These clinics
include Entrepreneurship Clinics, Community Enterprise or Development Clinics,
Intellectual Property Clinics, and Technology Clinics, among others. These
clinics may be markedly different from the traditional indigency-based clinics
that represent the origins of clinical pedagogy and practice. This session
addresses the questions raised by the expansion of clinics into the world of
transactional and business-related matters. Specifically, what outcomes are we
aiming to achieve through these clinics in the post-Carnegie and MacCrate
Report world? Are there identifiable "practice-ready skills" that can
best be taught with certain nontraditional categories of clients? What exactly
is driving the growth in transactional clinics? Additional questions discussed
will include how business-related clinics can best integrate into the
traditional clinic community, where these clinics fit into the access to justice/public
interest model, how business-related clinics are choosing clients, and other
logistical and policy-based issues. By the end of the session, participants
will gain an understanding of the current state of one of the newest and
fastest growing types of clinics, and how these clinics fit into the social
justice notion of law school clinical pedagogy, as well as the direction in
which such clinics are likely to move in coming years.