Clinical scholarshipJonny Hall

Acting Associate Dean Undergraduate Programmes/ClinicNorthumbria University School of Law

Editor International Journal of Clinical Legal Education

"a tendency, within clinical programs, to subordinate the question of what should be taught to the demands of what students are actually doing.”

G Bellow, ‘On Teaching the Teachers: Some preliminary reflections on Clinical Law Courses, in ‘In a Service Setting: Working Papers Prepared for CLEPR National Conference, Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania (1973) 374, 378

“This tendency still continues in clinical education, but it is one that we should resist and overcome.”

R Stuckey, ‘Teaching with Purpose: Defining and Achieving Desired Outcomes in Clinical Law Courses’ (2006-2007) 13 Clinical L. Rev 807, 812

Why scholarship?

“like future horticulturists confining their studies to cut flowers, like architects who study pictures of buildings and nothing else. They resemble prospective dog breeders who never see anything but stuffed dogs. And it is beginning to be suspected that there is some correlation between that kind of stuffed-dog study and the overproduction of stuffed shirts in the legal profession.”

J Frank ‘Why Not a Clinical Lawyer-School?’ (1932-33) 81 U. Pa. L. Rev. 907, 912

“is it not plain that [without abandoning other methods] law schools should once more get in intimate contact with what clients need and with what courts and lawyers actually do?”

J Frank ‘Why Not a Clinical Lawyer-School?’ (1932-33) 81 U. Pa. L. Rev. 907, 913

‘As active practitioners within the mainstream [clinicians] are uniquely able to contribute to legal education's understanding of the outside world".

R, Boswell, ‘Keeping the Practice in Clinical Education and Scholarship’ (1992) 43 Hastings L.J. 1187, 1193

Professional competence Values and social justice

AND include Reflection on and improvement of the

pedagogy – Question: Why Does it work and how can we make it work better?

Clinical Scholarship should spring from the goals of Clinical Legal Education itself

“The arguments over whether clinical scholarship should have a predominantly skills or public interest orientation touch on the underlying values and purposes of clinical legal education…a debate over the heart and soul of the clinical movement.”

F Bloch, ‘The Case for Clinical Scholarship’ (2004) 6 International Journal of

Clinical legal Education 7, 11

Professional skills vs public service?

[skills focused scholarship] “can help clinical educators to do what they are uniquely wellpositioned to do in the academy-namely to remedy legal education's notorious weakness in preparing students for the actual work they will do as lawyers.”

P Hoffman, ‘Clinical Scholarship and Skills Training’ (1994-1995) 1 Clinical L. Rev. 93, 94

An argument for skills-focused scholarship

It is not enough for clinicians to provide students the opportunity to look at the real world through the representation of clients. Clinical teachers must sensitize students to what they are seeing, guide them to a deeper understanding of their clients' lives and their relationship to the social, economic and political forces that affect their lives, and help students develop a critical consciousness imbued with a concern for social justice.

S Wizner, ‘Beyond Skills Training’ (2000-2001) 7 Clinical L. Rev. 327, 338-339

Values and social justice

“The appropriate question for legal education is not whether students learn from experience, but to what degree, if any, these learning possibilities are greater than offered by traditional law school pedagogy.” G Bellow

“More than thirty years later, legal education has not completely answered the question posed by Bellow. If clinical education is going to continue to thrive and grow, or even to maintain its current position in legal education, we must work harder to understand the strengthsand limitations of each form of clinical education

R Stuckey, ‘Teaching with Purpose: Defining and Achieving Desired Outcomes in Clinical Law Courses’ (2006-2007) 13 Clinical L. Rev 807, 812

The case for pedagogic scholarship

J P Ogilvy, Clinical Law Review Special Issue11 Clinical L. Rev. 5 2004-2005

An overview of clinical scholarship thus far

Clinical Methodology and Pedagogy -10 pages

Clinic design and administration – 7 pages Supervision – 2 pages Assessment and Evaluation – 1 page Lawyering skills – 14 pages Professional Responsibility (values and

ethics) – 14 pages Poverty Law/Political Context of Clinical

Legal Education -14 pages

Examples of scholarship from Ogilvy’s Bibliography

Whatever our preoccupation – an empirical enquiry into our actual students’ learning experience

the experience of young professionals and how clinic might better help them achieve professional competence and fulfilment as lawyers

The real impact on social justice of clinical programmes

assessment

Where are the gaps in current clinical scholarship?– a personal view

“clinical scholarship may be about skills, publicinterest practice, or clinical legal education itself. What is important is that clinical legal educators take the initiative to claim their scholarship and direct it in a way that supports and advances the broader goals of the clinical movement.”

F Bloch, ‘The Case for Clinical Scholarship’ (2004) 6 International Journal of Clinical legal Education 7, 11

So, What is clinical scholarship?

10th InternationalClinical LegalEducation Conferencein association with the Clinical Legal EducationOrganisation ConferenceRADISSON BLU HOTEL, DURHAM 11-13 JULY 2012

Clinic For All?