Preparing Students to be Interdisciplinary Collaborators for Change

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Session Type: Concurrent Sessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Hotel: N/A

Room: Yosemite A

Floor: Ballroom Level

Given the highly polarized society in which our students are entering the practice of law and the need for more creative tools to address seemingly intractable issues, now more than ever it is critical to prepare students to collaborate across disciplines. Interdisciplinary teams are more likely to create balanced, comprehensive and creative outcomes. Starting with the 2019-2020 academic year, schools of public health will join a growing number of health science programs requiring interprofessional curriculum as part of their accreditation requirements. Though the ABA does not require interdisciplinary or interprofessional competencies in the law school curriculum, interdisciplinary opportunities and interprofessional courses can support law schools' missions to train future lawyers to collaborate across disciplines, an increasing expectation among professionals of all types.

In this session, faculty from a wide range of clinical programs will share experiences designing and facilitating interdisciplinary and interprofessional opportunities. Clinicians from medical-legal partnership, veterans, entrepreneurship, unemployment insurance, and education law clinics will share examples of their interdisciplinary work with schools of social work, education, business, architecture, and public policy, as well as collaborations with legal writing and doctrinal law professors. These collaborations have included interdisciplinary work in the clinical setting, interdisciplinary advocacy projects, consultations with other disciplines in course design and evaluation, and the development of interprofessional cross-listed courses.

This session will culminate in a group discussion about opportunities, strengths, experiences and goals in interdisciplinary and interprofessional education as an enhancement to clinical opportunities and an overview of challenges and obstacles in programs and universities in moving such programs forward.