A Teacher\u27s Trouble: Risk, Responsibility and Rebellion

Abstract

What follows is an edited transcript of a session at the 1995 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, held in New Orleans, Louisiana, January 7, 1995. The meeting was a joint plenary session of the AALS Section on Professional Responsibility and the Section on Clinical Legal Education. The meeting was planned and the role plays were written by Professors Margaret Martin Barry and Lisa Lerman of The Catholic University of America and Professor Homer La Rue of Howard University. The purpose of the program was to foster interaction among teachers of professional responsibility and clinical teachers about issues that arise in both clinical and non-clinical teaching. As Professor Sandy Ogilvy of Catholic University said in introducing the session, the planners wanted to bring together the perspective on the profession of the professional responsibility teachers, with the expertise in teaching methodology of the clinicians, with the thought that each group would be interested in what the other group had to say. Interesting ethical issues arise daily in clinical programs, and the planners wanted to encourage cross-fertilization between these two fields and increased collaboration within law schools between clinical teachers and teachers of professional responsibility. In developing the three role plays presented in this program, the planners selected issues that raise ethical or professional dilemmas for the law teachers as well as for their students. The transcript of this discussion explores only some of the issues potentially raised by the role play scenarios. The editors of the Clinical Law Review invite readers to submit commentary reacting to the issues raised in this discussion, or raising other issues suggested by the role plays but not fully discussed by the participants. The Review will consider such submissions for possible publication in its next issue. Readers might also consider initiating further dialogue with colleagues through one of the relevant internet listservs (lawclinic, legalethics or lawprof); such dialogue also may be submitted for possible publication