#BlackLivesMatter: Law Clinic, Field Placements and Clinician Responses in Sanford, Ferguson, Staten Island, Cleveland and Our Communities

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Session Type: AALS Programs

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Inside and outside of the classroom, many of us in the clinical and field placement communities have long been on the frontlines of the struggle for racial, social, political, and economic justice. However, the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and countless others (of all genders) reinforced the idea that as educators, lawyers, and activists, our work matters now more than ever. The goal of this session will be to highlight some of the work being done to address issues tragically brought to light by these incidents, and to identify concrete ways in which members of our communities may collaborate to address issues such as carceral debt, police militarization, racial profiling, grand jury reform, citizen activism, and our teaching methods, to name just a few.
Join us as we convene a panel of clinical and field placement professors to discuss their work in Sanford, Ferguson, Staten Island and Cleveland. From there, we will invite audience members to discuss their work in advance of small group sessions. Although the conference promises robust discussions surrounding race and racial justice pedagogy and methods, we invite participants to share their teaching approaches here as well. In those small group sessions, participants will identify projects, action items, or initiatives ripe for collaboration between clinics and/or between clinics and home communities. The ultimate goal is to invite participants who successfully realize their collaborative goals to present their works at next year’s Clinical Conference.

The coordinators will send be sending out calls for a) a one-sentence description of work you have done that relates or responds to the deaths of Mr. Martin, Mr. Brown, Mr. Garner., or Mr. Rice, b) lesson plans surrounding the same, and/or c) copies of op-ed pieces. We will visually display your descriptions and work, and hope to feature your lesson plans and op-ed pieces [with the appropriate legal clearances] in an electronic compilation, available to members of the Clinical and Placement communities. More to follow.