"Change with Continuity": Maintaining Pedagogical Goals in the Midst of Clinical Change

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Session Type: AALS Programs

Session Capacity: N/A

Location: N/A

Room: Wilson Room

Floor: Third Floor

Clinicians have always faced the dual pressures of responding to community needs and providing a rich educational experience for law students. However, recent political and social forces have intensified existing client needs, created new crises, and further marginalized underrepresented populations. Additionally, the legal institutions that serve these populations struggle with limited resources and political pressure. This dynamic—of greater client need and increasing scarcity of legal assistance—poses a conundrum for many clinicians: whether to step into the breach and, if so, how to adapt our clinical models without compromising core values of clinical pedagogy.

This panel will engage participants in an interactive discussion of the possibilities and challenges of re-directing clinical focus in response to political and social changes. The presenters include clinicians who have experimented with a wide range of new models for delivery of legal services and teaching methods. They will discuss successes, lessons learned, and the challenges of practicing in new areas of law in the educational clinic setting.

Panelists hail from different corners of the country, and reflect a diversity of clinical programming: a community economic development clinic, a gender violence clinic, a small business legal clinic, a criminal defense clinic, and a food law clinic.