Natural divisions exist in law schools even within robust clinical programs. Individual clinics operate independently from each other; rarely do students work together across clinics. Pro bono projects and alternative spring break projects, which offer quasi-clinic experiences, engage students in important access to justice work outside clinic. If each of these programs joined together, even just one time during a semester, the capacity of a clinical program to assist underserved communities increases dramatically. This workshop aims to engage participants in a backward design approach to develop a mobile legal clinic.
The University of Tennessee’s Mobile Legal Clinic breaks down the divides between individual clinical courses, between clinic and pro bono, and between clinic and alumni pro bono work while responding to a serious access to justice need – bringing necessary legal services to sorely underserved rural communities. Building on this model, this interactive session will first ask participants to brainstorm the potential pedagogical goals of a mobile legal clinic. The participants will be asked to work on a hypothetical that uses a backward design approach to develop a mobile legal clinic. Breaking into small groups, participants will work together and then be asked to confront a realistic problem. The small groups will present their challenge and proposed solutions to the large group. Finally, each participant will be asked to do a quick-write that captures three take-aways from the workshop. The presenters will provide workshop participants with a dropbox folder that contains a toolkit for setting up a Mobile Legal Clinic, including sample documents, a checklist of things to consider, a sample timeline, an intake sheet, a limited representation agreement, a client receipt, and a sample attorney guide.