Planning for the Future by Understanding Our Past : An Empirical Approach

Go Back

Session Type: AALS Programs

Session Capacity: N/A

Location: N/A

Room: Salon 1

Floor: Third Floor

As the saying goes, you can’t move forward without looking back. Over the past decade, we have been collecting data on the state and nature of clinical legal education through surveys conducted by the Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education (CSALE). The CSALE data presents a statistically reliable and detailed picture of, among other things, clinical program design, pedagogy, and staffing. With each iteration of the survey, we’ve looked back (including to a 1987 AALS survey) at prior results to help clinical programs and faculty learn from the past and plan for and guide the future education of their students and service of their clients.

Using these data sources, we have compiled comparisons over time of law clinics, field placements, and clinical faculty along numerous metrics, including: major challenges to clinical programs; clinical faculty size, composition, and funding sources; hiring, retention and promotion practices; substantive focus of clinics; classroom content and grading practices; academic credits and student work; terms of enrollment; student teacher ratios; clinic capacity as related to student body size; student demand; and enrollment levels.

This session will be lively and visual (with colorful PowerPoint charts and graphs) and challenge the audience to situate themselves within the spectrum of other clinical programs, courses, and faculties and consider how they might move themselves and their programs forward to better address the needs of their students, clients, and communities