Enhancing Empathy and Resilience by Combining Doctrinal Teaching, Process Drama, and Live Client Work

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Session Type: Concurrent Sessions

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Professors Chase and Freedman will explore the benefits of a teaching collaboration between podium and clinical faculty to create an innovative family law/citizen re-entry course targeted to develop student capacity to engage across difference and challenge systemic injustice. An in-depth interviewing and counseling exercise using an actor-teacher in the role of client in a form of process drama was used to build skills which were subsequently deployed in a live-client clinical component. Working with client narratives and developing anti-racist perspectives were highlighted throughout. The course was substantively focused on the intersection of child support, race, poverty, and challenges facing formerly incarcerated individuals returning to the community. The presentation will focus on how process drama enhanced both the development of empathy and new perspectives on lawyer-client interactions, both of which were later translated to live-client work. Presenters will share teaching materials, including a social location exercise, and details about both the process drama and live client components of the course. Presenters will also share the methodology of a structured “resilience” dialogue that supports student autonomy during feedback and reflection conversations and promotes empathy and connection between student and faculty to develop a shared understanding of student performance. Finally, faculty will describe the challenge of exposing the systemic injustice exerted by the child support system upon low-income parents and share reflections on building an anti-racist pedagogy centered upon developing authentic client narratives as a component of pleading practice.