Looking at the Initial Client Meeting through an Interdisciplinary Lens: Applying Lessons from the Medical Profession to Law Teaching and Practice

In this essay a clinical law professor observes similarities in the way that physicians and lawyers interact with patients and clients during the initial consult/interview, based upon her experiences teaching in a medical legal partnership clinic

A Conscious Institutional Strategy for Expanding Experiential Education

As law schools seek to better prepare students for the profession, they are expanding experiential education in traditional contexts such as theory and practice simulation skills courses, clinics, and externships. At the same time, they are also searching for opportunities to expose students to practical learning opportunities during the entire course of their legal education by incorporating experiential education throughout the curriculum. It is a best practice to develop conscious strategies for pursuing this effort. While Best Practices for Legal Education called for the integration of teaching theory, doctrine, and practice, it did not address strategies for integrating experiential education across the curriculum.https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-chapters/1002/thumbnail.jp

Measuring the Impact of Social Justice Teaching: Research Design and Oversight

Research and the production of scholarship is a fundamental part of being a legal academic. Such endeavors identify issues and answer questions that further understanding of the law, the profession, and the justice system itself. Research and scholarship in the legal academy traditionally meant the study of law and legal theory. A growing body of legal academics are focusing research and scholarship on legal education itself, as well as research that measures the impact of legal education on the development of students\u27 practical and professional skills. The impact of clinical legal education is an important aspect of this scholarship. This article explores how thoughtfully designed research projects can measure the impact of social justice teaching, using examples and experience gleaned from the evaluation and research component of a medical legal partnership and its affiliated law school clinic. The article examines principles of good research design, the art of formulating research questions, and the potential uses for resulting data. It also identifies critical steps and issues to consider when developing a research project

Incorporating Experiential Education Throughout the Curriculum

In discussing experiential education, Best Practices for Legal Education focused primarily on the three traditional types of separate experiential courses: in-house clinics, externships, and simulations, and treated them in a separate chapter. These courses were defined as those where “experience is a significant or primary method of instruction” rather than a secondary method, and where “students must perform complex skills in order to gain expertise.” Arguably, this separate treatment reinforced what has too often been a divide between doctrinally-focused teaching and practice-focused teaching. Best Practices recognized that “experiential education can be employed as an adjunct to traditional methodologies regardless of class size” through methods such as incorporating simulation exercises into doctrinally-focused courses. It did so, however, only as part of its discussion of best practices for legal education generally. This section builds on Best Practices by emphasizing the need to incorporate experiential education throughout the curriculum in order to maximize its educational impact. The term “experiential education” is, therefore, used to encompass both separate experiential courses and what will be termed “experiential modules.” Because a key distinction in experiential education is between simulated and real experiences, the term “clinical legal education” will be restricted to separate courses involving real experiences—law clinics, externships and offerings using alternative models, often termed “hybrids.” The term “law clinics” will be used to include both traditional in-house clinics taught by full-time faculty, and other structures that provide a similar level of intensive, integrated teaching and supervision. As Best Practices suggested, it is helpful to distinguish “experiential learning” and “experiential education.” Both happen in law school, and in life; both are important. Experiential learning is simply a primary way that people learn on their own, whereas experiential education involves active and purposeful design and teaching. A focus on experiential education directs law schools and individual legal educators to their role in ensuring that maximum learning takes place beyond raw experience. The way in which each teacher integrates experiential education methods will often determine how far the students develop as lawyers in response to those methods. The way in which a law school designs and delivers a coherent array of courses to allow a student to progress from novice to (reasonably) competent professional in three short years will, more and more, define its efficacy, reputation, and leadership as a provider of legal education.https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-books/1011/thumbnail.jp

Incorporating Experiential Education Throughout the Curriculum

In discussing experiential education, Best Practices for Legal Education focused primarily on the three traditional types of separate experiential courses: in-house clinics, externships, and simulations, and treated them in a separate chapter. These courses were defined as those where “experience is a significant or primary method of instruction” rather than a secondary method, and where “students must perform complex skills in order to gain expertise.” Arguably, this separate treatment reinforced what has too often been a divide between doctrinally-focused teaching and practice-focused teaching. Best Practices recognized that “experiential education can be employed as an adjunct to traditional methodologies regardless of class size” through methods such as incorporating simulation exercises into doctrinally-focused courses. It did so, however, only as part of its discussion of best practices for legal education generally. This section builds on Best Practices by emphasizing the need to incorporate experiential education throughout the curriculum in order to maximize its educational impact. The term “experiential education” is, therefore, used to encompass both separate experiential courses and what will be termed “experiential modules.” Because a key distinction in experiential education is between simulated and real experiences, the term “clinical legal education” will be restricted to separate courses involving real experiences—law clinics, externships and offerings using alternative models, often termed “hybrids.” The term “law clinics” will be used to include both traditional in-house clinics taught by full-time faculty, and other structures that provide a similar level of intensive, integrated teaching and supervision. As Best Practices suggested, it is helpful to distinguish “experiential learning” and “experiential education.” Both happen in law school, and in life; both are important. Experiential learning is simply a primary way that people learn on their own, whereas experiential education involves active and purposeful design and teaching. A focus on experiential education directs law schools and individual legal educators to their role in ensuring that maximum learning takes place beyond raw experience. The way in which each teacher integrates experiential education methods will often determine how far the students develop as lawyers in response to those methods. The way in which a law school designs and delivers a coherent array of courses to allow a student to progress from novice to (reasonably) competent professional in three short years will, more and more, define its efficacy, reputation, and leadership as a provider of legal education.https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-chapters/1007/thumbnail.jp