Creative Multimedia Advocacy in Clinical Legal Education

Go Back

Session Type: Concurrent Sessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Hotel: N/A

Room: Union Square 1&2

Floor: 4th Floor

In this session, we will focus on the use of art, design, and technology to envision a more just reality that centers rights. While legal advocacy has traditionally focused on language and verbal persuasion, the use of images and creative experiences can play an important complementary role. For most social justice and human rights issues, the audience for legal advocacy is not only courts, but also communities and policymakers. As such, the ability to develop to know your right materials, factsheets, manuals, social media posts, and websites that are visually compelling and include imagery is critical for impact. Moreover, the use of art and design provides additional opportunities to connect with viewers at an emotional level. Technology and web-based design can also enable interaction and deeper engagement with a wide range of audiences. Law school, however, has generally pursued a narrow focus on verbal mastery, neglecting advocacy that engages our various senses. This session will introduce participants to the opportunities, challenges, and considerations for engaging in broader advocacy that taps into not just our logic and verbal skills, but also our creativity and the multiple ways we visualize and experience reality. This session will draw on case studies of creative advocacy experiences (and experiments) in human rights, child welfare, transactional, and criminal defense clinics, identifying key principles of creative advocacy, and brainstorming their application to participants’ work. The session will further address how to incorporate these methodologies into clinical teaching and student engagement. Goals: • To introduce participants to various opportunities to integrate creative, multimedia advocacy in clinical legal education. • To provide the basics of visual literacy, enabling clinical instructors to use images more effectively in their work. • To share lessons learned from collaborations with artists and designers. • To brainstorm creative projects that can complement and advance participants’ legal advocacy.: