Reexamining the Role of the Criminal Clinic

Go Back

Session Type: Concurrent Sessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Location: N/A

Room: Harborside Ballroom E

Floor: Fourth Floor

For decades, clinical legal education has served as a model for preparing young people for entry into the legal profession. Criminal clinics do enormous good for both law students and clients. Students win hearings and criminal trials against powerful state actors—police and prosecutors. They have achieved dismissals, exonerated the innocent, freed sick and elderly people from prison through compassionate release, and so on. One of the hallmarks of clinical legal education is reflection and self-critique. This timely panel will reflect on the potential deficiencies of criminal clinics and how to evaluate law schools’ and clinical educators’ role in the criminal legal system. While we teach client-centeredness, do our institutions allow truly client-centered clinical models? Or, can criminal clinics hurt clients? Does randomized enrollment allow “under-performers” to harm representation? Do one-semester clinics hinder development of trusting client relationships or cost clients continuity in their representation? Do clinicians with little trial experience affect client outcomes and teach bad habits to those entering the profession? Is it appropriate for clinicians who are not familiar with practice norms in the jurisdiction of their clinics to teach criminal clinics? What about clinicians with significant trial experience, but little experience in classroom teaching? And, what unique role do criminal clinics play given the rise of public defender offices that offer 2L students summer internships where they handle a full case load and try cases before juries?  We are not experts on these subjects. Indeed, the questions posed above apply to our own teaching and clinics. But we think it is time to reflect on the role of the criminal clinic, a form of which virtually every clinical program employs. We plan for an interactive discussion that leaves participants with ideas for improvement and a commitment to ongoing reflection.