From the Clinic to the Community: Leveraging Empirical Analysis to Advance Social Justice

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Session Type: Concurrent Sessions

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There are a growing number of clinicians who recognize the natural fit between community engagement and empirical research that can be part of advocacy and activism on behalf of a community. The goal of the session will be to provide fellow clinicians with inspiration, lessons learned, frameworks for combining advocacy and empirical research in their own engagement with communities, and approaches to managing the tensions and conflicts that may also arise. The concurrent session will bring together clinicians who are conducting empirical research in communities where they are also advocates and activists. The presenters currently teach in clinics that address issues such as access to justice, legal services, health justice, domestic violence law, criminal defense, consumer law, and immigration law. Their research methods have included observation, qualitative interviews, and quantitative analysis. The presenters are also engaged in ongoing scholarly projects that utilize empirical research in these same areas and with the same communities they serve as clinicians. Many of the presenters are working with social science partners across disciplines on their empirical project. The session will include two main parts: (1) sharing our own reflections on the intersection of empirical research and activism in communities and (2) creating working groups to help participants entertain, plan, or troubleshoot their own ideas about expanding their community engagement to include empirical research. This session connects to the conference theme by discussing the ability of clinicians to leverage their current teaching and advocacy to address community and national challenges in volatile times. Attendees will explore why – and how – to implement empirical analysis into their clinical teaching, as well as gain an understanding of the complicated relationship between empirical research and strengthening community engagement.