Facebook, Twitter, smart phones, "the cloud." These technologies are a way of life for today's students, but do they have any place in the legal clinic? As our clinical programs prepare students of the online generation for the practice of law, the integration of technology and professional responsibility into the law clinic curriculum is critical. This concurrent session will provide an accessible guide to the changing trends in law practice technologies, and a discussion of how to effectively train a new generation of law students to use technology responsibly.
Clinical Professor Stringfellow-Otey and Chief Information Security Officer Cary will draw on their recent collaboration at Pepperdine School of Law. Together, they have worked to establish a technological infrastructure and a clinic-wide user policy that protects client confidentiality, trains students in professional responsibility and satisfies university security policy.
The session will include the following:
- An overview of current technologies and trends in technology and law practice
- A discussion of the current ethical opinions and trends pertaining to professionalism and technology
- Small group breakout sessions to work through hypothetical scenarios, identify ethical and practice issues, and create technological “ground rules."
- A takeaway discussion guide that can be used in your clinic to engage students and to encourage them to think more critically about the way they handle client information.
- Sample student user agreements and IT personnel agreements, which can be adapted to any clinical setting.
- The opportunity for participants to share technology best practices used at their respective schools