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Cheryl Bratt discusses that Experiential education in law school is crucial for accreditation and admission to the bar, but there are limited opportunities for students to work with real clients.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 27, 2024

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This video discusses experiential legal education, which is an approach that blends legal theory with practical application, allowing law students to learn through real-world experiences. This video form of education is guided by instructors who prepare students before the experience, help them reflect after, and facilitate the integration of lessons learned into future practice.

Historically, legal education in the U.S. has shifted over time between practical training and theoretical study. Initially, training was largely apprenticeship-based, but by the late 1800s, it transitioned to a more academic model influenced by the case method established by Christopher Columbus Langdell at Harvard Law School, emphasizing critical thinking and analysis of legal precedents.

Despite the value of this method, critics argue that it often fails to adequately prepare graduates for practical legal work. Consequently, law schools are re-emphasizing experiential learning through clinics, simulations, and externships, primarily for upper-level students, with limited opportunities in the first year.

This video introduces the "Lawyer's Clearinghouse," a program designed to involve first-year law students in real legal issues by working alongside practicing lawyers in community service settings. Through clinics focused on assisting low-income individuals, students gain hands-on experience while learning substantive law and engaging directly with clients, thereby fostering a sense of professional identity and understanding of the practical impact of law.

The discussion emphasizes the need for a balanced legal education that includes both rigorous academic study and practical skills training, especially as the American Bar Association mandates experiential learning credits for law students. Overall, the text advocates for greater opportunities within law schools for students to engage in practical work, enhancing their readiness for legal practice while maintaining a foundation in legal theory.

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Different scholars,

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and different legal professional organizations might define

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the term somewhat differently,

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but at its core, experiential legal education refers

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to the pedagogical approach of learning by doing,

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it merges the law, meaning legal doctrine with the practice

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of law, so that students learn

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and apply lawyering skills to real legal problems.

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Um, now with that experiential legal education is more than

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just experiential learning.

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It's, it's more than just doing the thing.

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Um, instead it requires instruction.

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It requires a teacher to guide the student

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through the experience, you know, to help the student plan

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for the experience, and then

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after it, to help them reflect on the experience

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and finally integrate lessons learned from the experience

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to future situations so that they grow.

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And by engaging in the cycle of experiential education, of

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planning and doing, and reflecting

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and improving law students builds their knowledge base

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and hone their arsenal of tools so

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that they can approach the next opportunity with

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that much more skill and sophistication.

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You know, experiential legal education on the

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whole isn't new.

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Um, in fact, legal education has been on this sort

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of pendulum swing between the two polls of, practice

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and theory since the early days of the Republic.

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You know, initially experiential education was pretty much

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the only form of legal education offered in the

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United States up until around the late 18 hundreds.

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Um, at that time, anyone who wanted

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to become a lawyer was trained

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through an apprenticeship program.

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You know, they had to find a lawyer

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who had agreed to take them on.

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They had to pay that lawyer a fee.

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And then they learned just by working in

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that lawyer's office, hopefully, with receiving some lessons

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or, or instruction along the way.

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And then when law schools did eventually begin to develop,

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they were essentially considered trade schools

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and not what we think of.

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Um, today. When we think about, you know,

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the modern law school, that all changed

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around 1870 when legal education shifted to a much more

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academic and theoretical approach, you know,

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swinging the pendulum to this opposite side.

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Um, the new approach was called the case method model,

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and it was created by then dean of Harvard Law School,

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Christopher Columbus Lal.

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And the case method model was a radical departure from

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what legal education looked like previously, you know,

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instead of teaching law practically.

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And, and by that I mean, through practice, Lingel believed

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that law was a science.

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And as a science, it required the sort of, you know,

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careful study

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and examination of primary sources, which, you know,

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in the laws to visual opinions in order to distill

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and articulate these fundamental principles of law

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that could then be applied to future scenarios.

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So today, you know, when we think about law schools

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as training students to quote, think like lawyers,

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we're essentially referring to this Lang Delian approach

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where students read precedents

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and then engage with their professors in this rigorous

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Socratic questioning

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where the law students themselves draw conclusions about,

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you know, what the case means

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and what the significance is to then apply those conclusions

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to these new factual scenarios by either making analogies

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or drawing distinctions from the

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precedent that they had read.

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And that Delian model still largely exists today in almost

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every United States law school, you know,

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and it's steeped in theory in academic exercises.

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It's, it's intellectual and heady and complex.

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And while I think many people, myself included, agree

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that there's value in this Lang Deion model, you know,

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particularly in terms of teaching critical thinking skills

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for students, it also has its, its critics, its detractors.

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And over the years, practitioners,

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and when we think about practitioners, they are, you know,

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future legal employers of law students.

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Um, so practitioners

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and academics, some

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of them have pushed back against this pedagogical approach,

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recognizing that after the three years

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of law school law students graduate

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and become, you know, lawyers

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and these junior lawyers leave the comfortable confines

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of the academy and,

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and are thrust into the real world to do real things,

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you know, write contracts, negotiate settlements,

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or defend the accused.

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Um, but I don't know how to do it.

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And so law schools may have been great at producing these

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deep analytical thinkers,

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but they haven't necessarily always been great at producing

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these practice ready lawyers.

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And so with that, the pendulum has swung again.

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So the pendulum has swung, in response

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to this theoretical approach.

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Um, and, and there was this movement in the law schools

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to develop more practice ready lawyers.

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You know, there came clinical legal,

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clinical legal education

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where students learn substantive law in a law clinic

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that's housed at the law school.

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There's also more simulation courses at the law schools

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where a law professor creates a hypothetical legal dilemma

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so that law students can role play as lawyers.

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And law schools also generally offer externships

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where students leave campus and work in a law office,

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and are supervised by someone off site.

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But all of those experiences, these clinics and simulations

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and, externships are almost exclusively reserved

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for second year and third year law students.

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And, electives really are outside

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of the prescribed first year curriculum.

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The one experiential course that law students do get

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during their first year is the one L lawyering course, where

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by and large law students learn basic legal advocacy.

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You know, they learn how to conduct legal research

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and engage in legal analysis, and then learn

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and practice the art and the form of legal writing

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and engage in oral advocacy.

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But that course then that's, itself is limited

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because, again, it's just a simulation.

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It's cherry picked facts

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and law to just ensure that students get a taste of

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what it's like to practice these skills.

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I think they're not too young.

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I think they are good to go as long

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as they're supported in their quest

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to perform legal skills, right?

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And that's the difference between,

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experiential education and experiential learning.

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We don't wanna thrust law students into,

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representing clients without any sort of foundation.

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They do need an instructor, a professor,

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or someone to guide them through the experience.

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And so, and the first year of law school,

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also recognized that you have these students coming in

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who had a vision of what it is to be a lawyer

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and what they want from that profession.

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And yet we take that energy and enthusiasm

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and we plop these students into large lecture halls

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where they read cases from, you know, the 18 hundreds

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or 17 hundreds, and,

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and then engage in the Socratic questioning

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where they are divorced from the clients, from the people,

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from the issues that brought them

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to law school in the first place.

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And law students can,

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can experience a real dissonance in terms of

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what their initial purpose was in terms of coming

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to law school and

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what the actual experience is once they're there.

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And you can see a drop in motivation at times,

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and a real instability in the law students' identity

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as they question whether this is really right for them.

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So I think introducing more practical opportunities

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for law students helps, not only merge

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what they're learning in the classroom

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with the actual application with real clients,

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but it also helps them see the,

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what law school will be delivering

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for them as a future career.

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The Lawyer's Clearinghouse experience was something

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that I started at my law school as I recognized this sort

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of, hunger from my law students

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to really engage with real people.

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Um, the objective of the program was

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to involve these first year law students in assessing

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and resolving real legal issues with these live clients.

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I wanted my students to apply the skills

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that I was teaching them in my classroom, both hard

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and soft skills in a more authentic setting, so

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that they could feel and experience the value of

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what they were learning in the classroom

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and see actually how it would serve others.

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You know, I wanted them to also feel

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like they are being initiated

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and part of the practicing bar, right,

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to meet their future colleagues

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and associates have opportunities to engage not just

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with clients, but with also real lawyers.

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Um, and I wanted begin to appreciate the, the power

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and responsibility that comes with wielding

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and knowing the law, right?

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I want them to confront the societal issues

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that bring clients to lawyers in the first place.

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And, and for the law students to witness how our laws

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and policies impact these real individuals.

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Um, and I want them to recognize the ways in which lawyering

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both can and can't remedy a real tragic situation.

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Um, and, and again, to feel, to feel the weight of,

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the trust that a client places in a lawyer.

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And so, with, a partnership that I have

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with a local nonprofit organization called The Lawyers'

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Clearinghouse, I, I was able

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to accomplish this with my students.

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So the Lawyers' Clearinghouse,

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engages the private bar in direct services representation

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of clients who are either low income and

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or housing insecure.

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And so it, it, allows, you know, corporate attorneys

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to take a break from their, the work that their current,

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you know, the, their paid work to, to give back

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to the community, engage in this pro bono work.

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Um, my students involvement is limited,

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but it's important, as they work alongside one

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or two practicing lawyers in two different kinds of clients.

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And I think keeping the experience discreet

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and manageable is a way to give them a taste of

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what it's like to, own the role as lawyer,

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while also not detracting from the real intellectual,

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and important classroom work that they're,

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they're doing in tandem.

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Um, so there's two different clinics

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that my law students engaged with.

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Uh, the first setting is,

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in what's called the Cory Clinic.

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It's a remote clinic that's devoted

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to helping individuals seal

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or expunge their criminal records.

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Um, so Lawyers Clearinghouse hosts this clinic every other

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week where clients can meet with a team of two

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to three lawyers, one of them being one of my students,

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to learn their options as it relates

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to their criminal records,

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and then choose an appropriate path forward.

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So in this capacity, my students have several

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responsibilities on top of their ongoing classwork.

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So in addition to what they're doing within the law school,

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they're also, for one, just like the practicing lawyers,

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they need to watch a two hour training to learn the law,

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the substantive law on record ceiling.

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Um, second, the students receive their client's criminal

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records for review,

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and then they join a strategy session call

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with their lawyer team, along with an expert in,

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record ceiling who is part of the lawyer's clearing house.

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Third, the students then have the responsibility

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of writing up the notes from that strategy call

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to memorialize the client's situation and option.

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So the, the students are doing this real work of recording

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what was discussed,

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and, making a plan for the subsequent conversation

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that they'll all be having with the client.

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Now to ensure that the law students are doing this

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correctly, the query expert reviews the writeup for accuracy

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before the students then send out that memo.

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So there is this, you know,

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pedagogical check on the students to ensure that the advice

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that they're all going to be giving is accurate.

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And then the students participate in the Cory Clinic,

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you know, counseling, the,

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the clients alongside these other one

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or two practicing lawyers, to ensure that the students,

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have an opportunity to really look,

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reflect on the experience so that they then have

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to write up a self-reflection and, and sort of turn inward

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and consider what the experience was like and,

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and how it has impacted them.

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And then lastly, as a form of just professionalism

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and teaching my students how to, maintain,

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and develop a professional network.

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All of the law students need to write a thank you note,

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which gives them this sort of final touchstone to the bar.

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And the entire engagement, you know,

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takes maybe about 10 hours of work total,

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but it's all just in one week.

277
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And so it doesn't take away from their busy schedules,

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but still gives them this really, I,

279
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I won't say life altering,

280
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but at least, you know, first year altering experience,

281
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because they get to really see the impact of, what,

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again, what the law can and cannot do.

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There's a second clinic that I also run,

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it's the legal clinic.

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And, and it's similar. This clinic, however, is live

286
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and it takes place in a local homeless shelter,

287
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where residents from the shelter

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who are experiencing a legal issue can

289
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meet with a team of lawyers.

290
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Again, it's one of my students.

291
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And then one or two practicing lawyers who assess the case.

292
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Um, so that clinic is hosted on the off

293
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weeks of the Cory Clinic.

294
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And again, the students have various responsibilities.

295
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So they attend a training with the practicing lawyers,

296
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which is generally hosted at, you know,

297
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a downtown law firm or company.

298
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Um, they then review substantive materials about,

299
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the common legal issues that clients might present with,

300
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such as, you know, housing and eviction

301
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or public benefits issues,

302
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employment issues, things like that.

303
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And then the students participate in a clinic where they

304
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and their law partners interview the clients.

305
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Um, after the interviews, the students

306
00:14:29.075 --> 00:14:31.935
and lawyers participate in a case round, so they go

307
00:14:31.935 --> 00:14:34.335
to a separate room within the shelter,

308
00:14:34.635 --> 00:14:37.655
and the students have to orally report,

309
00:14:37.885 --> 00:14:41.135
what happened in the interviews, what the client's story is,

310
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and, and then engage in a brainstorming session of

311
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what next steps might be.

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And then the students memorialize, those interviews,

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they write up interview summaries that they then deliver

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to the practicing lawyers who will be taking on the cases.

315
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And then lastly, again, they also complete a self-reflection

316
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and, and send those thank you notes.

317
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And I haven't measured the efficacy in that way,

318
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however, I'll say a few things.

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Number one, the students have had this leg up on engaging

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with real lawyers in an authentic setting outside

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of the sort of networking meet

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and greet opportunities that law schools generally offer

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to help law students, you know, meet future employers.

324
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Instead of this sort of fall setting of, of trying

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to get to know one another.

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In the Lawyer's Clearinghouse situation,

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they've really worked as a team with these lawyers

328
00:15:34.225 --> 00:15:35.685
to engage with a client.

329
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And so there's this sort of shared enterprise,

330
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and I think it boosts law students' confidence going into

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future work.

332
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Number two, it's also a great way

333
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of helping the law students develop their professional

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identity and really see themselves in the role as lawyer.

335
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So instead of their second

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or third year going into, say, a clinic

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or an externship where they would be,

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it would be their first exposure to working with a client

339
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or working with a real person.

340
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Um, my law students have sort of, you know, gotten rid

341
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of the, the cobwebs

342
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and had that, that initial experience first, so

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that they again, have a more, a better understanding of

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what their responsibilities are, in terms

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of learning the law and sharing the law with the client,

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and helping to advocate on the client's behalf.

347
00:16:28.905 --> 00:16:29.925
So whether

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or not the students substantively,

349
00:16:32.985 --> 00:16:36.085
are better at record sealing the second time around,

350
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or, you know, advocating in court

351
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and in sort of a different live client situation.

352
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I'm not sure it's a direct one-to-one,

353
00:16:46.025 --> 00:16:48.285
but I think there is a, a sort of, growth

354
00:16:48.465 --> 00:16:50.885
and evolution of the student as a lawyer,

355
00:16:51.135 --> 00:16:54.445
which does get seen when we think back to the pendulum swing

356
00:16:54.665 --> 00:16:58.245
of legal education, of going from, you know, practice

357
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to theory, swinging back to practice again.

358
00:17:02.175 --> 00:17:05.125
We're still in this pendulum swing back to practice.

359
00:17:05.425 --> 00:17:09.445
And, the law schools are really wrestling with how

360
00:17:09.445 --> 00:17:11.685
to create these practice ready lawyers.

361
00:17:12.585 --> 00:17:16.205
Um, in 2014, the American Bar Association

362
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introduced the requirement

363
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that all law students must engage in at least six credits

364
00:17:22.545 --> 00:17:24.405
of experiential learning.

365
00:17:24.635 --> 00:17:28.725
They're currently now in 2024, considering upping

366
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that requirement to 15 credits.

367
00:17:31.985 --> 00:17:36.535
So there's more, assuming this goes forward, and,

368
00:17:36.535 --> 00:17:39.255
and even if it doesn't, I'll just say certain states have

369
00:17:39.255 --> 00:17:42.855
requirements as well, of anywhere from six to 15 credits.

370
00:17:42.875 --> 00:17:45.815
New York and California being two of them, given

371
00:17:45.885 --> 00:17:48.815
that law students are now not only

372
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Interested in doing more live client work

373
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and more real experiential education work,

374
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but also are now required to do this work to become members

375
00:17:59.145 --> 00:18:02.045
of the bar, I think law schools need

376
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to start finding more ways to offer these opportunities

377
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to students, while also not detracting from

378
00:18:10.025 --> 00:18:14.445
the intellectual, rigorous study of legal doctrine.

379
00:18:14.985 --> 00:18:16.605
So perhaps it is these sort

380
00:18:16.605 --> 00:18:20.245
of more discreet experiences like the Lawyer's Clearinghouse

381
00:18:20.295 --> 00:18:23.685
experience that law students can engage in more broadly

382
00:18:23.825 --> 00:18:27.645
to ensure that their students get these, you know,

383
00:18:28.595 --> 00:18:32.725
smaller but still impactful opportunities

384
00:18:32.985 --> 00:18:36.365
to engage with real people in real settings, to,

385
00:18:36.465 --> 00:18:39.965
to create this more holistic sense of what a law student is

386
00:18:39.985 --> 00:18:42.765
and what this future lawyer, can be.

Experiential Education in Legal Training

00:00:00 - Different scholars, and different legal professional organizations might define the term somewhat differently, but at its core, experiential legal education refers to the pedagogical approach of learning by doing, it merges the law, meaning legal doctrine with the practice of law, so that students learn and apply lawyering skills to real legal problems. now with that experiential legal education is more than just experiential learning. It's, it's more than just doing the thing. instead it requires instruction.
00:00:36 - through the experience, you know, to help the student plan for the experience, and then after it, to help them reflect on the experience and finally integrate lessons learned from the experience to future situations so that they grow. And by engaging in the cycle of experiential education, of planning and doing, and reflecting and improving law students builds their knowledge base and hone their arsenal of tools so that they can approach the next opportunity with
00:01:09 - You know, experiential legal education on the whole isn't new. in fact, legal education has been on this sort of pendulum swing between the two polls of, practice and theory since the early days of the Republic. You know, initially experiential education was pretty much the only form of legal education offered in the United States up until around the late 18 hundreds. at that time, anyone who wanted to become a lawyer was trained
00:01:38 - You know, they had to find a lawyer who had agreed to take them on. They had to pay that lawyer a fee. And then they learned just by working in that lawyer's office, hopefully, with receiving some lessons or, or instruction along the way. And then when law schools did eventually begin to develop, they were essentially considered trade schools and not what we think of. today. When we think about, you know, the modern law school, that all changed around 1870 when legal education shifted to a much more
00:02:10 - swinging the pendulum to this opposite side. the new approach was called the case method model, and it was created by then dean of Harvard Law School, Christopher Columbus Lal. And the case method model was a radical departure from what legal education looked like previously, you know, instead of teaching law practically. And, and by that I mean, through practice, Lingel believed that law was a science.
00:02:41 - careful study and examination of primary sources, which, you know, in the laws to visual opinions in order to distill and articulate these fundamental principles of law that could then be applied to future scenarios. So today, you know, when we think about law schools as training students to quote, think like lawyers, we're essentially referring to this Lang Delian approach where students read precedents and then engage with their professors in this rigorous

Law School's Balance: Theory vs. Practice

00:03:10 - where the law students themselves draw conclusions about, you know, what the case means and what the significance is to then apply those conclusions to these new factual scenarios by either making analogies or drawing distinctions from the precedent that they had read. And that Delian model still largely exists today in almost every United States law school, you know, and it's steeped in theory in academic exercises. It's, it's intellectual and heady and complex.
00:03:43 - that there's value in this Lang Deion model, you know, particularly in terms of teaching critical thinking skills for students, it also has its, its critics, its detractors. And over the years, practitioners, and when we think about practitioners, they are, you know, future legal employers of law students. so practitioners and academics, some of them have pushed back against this pedagogical approach, recognizing that after the three years
00:04:14 - and become, you know, lawyers and these junior lawyers leave the comfortable confines of the academy and, and are thrust into the real world to do real things, you know, write contracts, negotiate settlements, or defend the accused. but I don't know how to do it. And so law schools may have been great at producing these deep analytical thinkers, but they haven't necessarily always been great at producing these practice ready lawyers.
00:04:46 - So the pendulum has swung, in response to this theoretical approach. and, and there was this movement in the law schools to develop more practice ready lawyers. You know, there came clinical legal, clinical legal education where students learn substantive law in a law clinic that's housed at the law school. There's also more simulation courses at the law schools where a law professor creates a hypothetical legal dilemma so that law students can role play as lawyers.
00:05:18 - where students leave campus and work in a law office, and are supervised by someone off site. But all of those experiences, these clinics and simulations and, externships are almost exclusively reserved for second year and third year law students. And, electives really are outside of the prescribed first year curriculum. The one experiential course that law students do get during their first year is the one L lawyering course, where
00:05:52 - You know, they learn how to conduct legal research and engage in legal analysis, and then learn and practice the art and the form of legal writing and engage in oral advocacy. But that course then that's, itself is limited because, again, it's just a simulation. It's cherry picked facts and law to just ensure that students get a taste of what it's like to practice these skills. I think they're not too young.

Enhancing Legal Education Through Practical Experience

00:06:21 - as they're supported in their quest to perform legal skills, right? And that's the difference between, experiential education and experiential learning. We don't wanna thrust law students into, representing clients without any sort of foundation. They do need an instructor, a professor, or someone to guide them through the experience. And so, and the first year of law school, also recognized that you have these students coming in
00:06:54 - and what they want from that profession. And yet we take that energy and enthusiasm and we plop these students into large lecture halls where they read cases from, you know, the 18 hundreds or 17 hundreds, and, and then engage in the Socratic questioning where they are divorced from the clients, from the people, from the issues that brought them to law school in the first place. And law students can,
00:07:24 - what their initial purpose was in terms of coming to law school and what the actual experience is once they're there. And you can see a drop in motivation at times, and a real instability in the law students' identity as they question whether this is really right for them. So I think introducing more practical opportunities for law students helps, not only merge what they're learning in the classroom
00:07:55 - but it also helps them see the, what law school will be delivering for them as a future career. The Lawyer's Clearinghouse experience was something that I started at my law school as I recognized this sort of, hunger from my law students to really engage with real people. the objective of the program was to involve these first year law students in assessing and resolving real legal issues with these live clients.
00:08:25 - that I was teaching them in my classroom, both hard and soft skills in a more authentic setting, so that they could feel and experience the value of what they were learning in the classroom and see actually how it would serve others. You know, I wanted them to also feel like they are being initiated and part of the practicing bar, right, to meet their future colleagues and associates have opportunities to engage not just with clients, but with also real lawyers.
00:08:58 - and responsibility that comes with wielding and knowing the law, right? I want them to confront the societal issues that bring clients to lawyers in the first place. And, and for the law students to witness how our laws and policies impact these real individuals. and I want them to recognize the ways in which lawyering both can and can't remedy a real tragic situation.

Law Students Engaging with Real-World Clients

00:09:27 - the trust that a client places in a lawyer. And so, with, a partnership that I have with a local nonprofit organization called The Lawyers' Clearinghouse, I, I was able to accomplish this with my students. So the Lawyers' Clearinghouse, engages the private bar in direct services representation of clients who are either low income and or housing insecure. And so it, it, allows, you know, corporate attorneys
00:10:00 - you know, the, their paid work to, to give back to the community, engage in this pro bono work. my students involvement is limited, but it's important, as they work alongside one or two practicing lawyers in two different kinds of clients. And I think keeping the experience discreet and manageable is a way to give them a taste of what it's like to, own the role as lawyer,
00:10:31 - and important classroom work that they're, they're doing in tandem. so there's two different clinics that my law students engaged with. the first setting is, in what's called the Cory Clinic. It's a remote clinic that's devoted to helping individuals seal or expunge their criminal records. so Lawyers Clearinghouse hosts this clinic every other week where clients can meet with a team of two to three lawyers, one of them being one of my students,
00:11:01 - to their criminal records, and then choose an appropriate path forward. So in this capacity, my students have several responsibilities on top of their ongoing classwork. So in addition to what they're doing within the law school, they're also, for one, just like the practicing lawyers, they need to watch a two hour training to learn the law, the substantive law on record ceiling. second, the students receive their client's criminal records for review,
00:11:32 - with their lawyer team, along with an expert in, record ceiling who is part of the lawyer's clearing house. Third, the students then have the responsibility of writing up the notes from that strategy call to memorialize the client's situation and option. So the, the students are doing this real work of recording what was discussed, and, making a plan for the subsequent conversation that they'll all be having with the client.
00:12:03 - correctly, the query expert reviews the writeup for accuracy before the students then send out that memo. So there is this, you know, pedagogical check on the students to ensure that the advice that they're all going to be giving is accurate. And then the students participate in the Cory Clinic, you know, counseling, the, the clients alongside these other one or two practicing lawyers, to ensure that the students,

Building Confidence Through Experiential Legal Education

00:12:35 - reflect on the experience so that they then have to write up a self-reflection and, and sort of turn inward and consider what the experience was like and, and how it has impacted them. And then lastly, as a form of just professionalism and teaching my students how to, maintain, and develop a professional network. All of the law students need to write a thank you note, which gives them this sort of final touchstone to the bar. And the entire engagement, you know,
00:13:05 - but it's all just in one week. And so it doesn't take away from their busy schedules, but still gives them this really, I, I won't say life altering, but at least, you know, first year altering experience, because they get to really see the impact of, what, again, what the law can and cannot do. There's a second clinic that I also run, it's the legal clinic. And, and it's similar. This clinic, however, is live
00:13:37 - where residents from the shelter who are experiencing a legal issue can meet with a team of lawyers. Again, it's one of my students. And then one or two practicing lawyers who assess the case. so that clinic is hosted on the off weeks of the Cory Clinic. And again, the students have various responsibilities. So they attend a training with the practicing lawyers, which is generally hosted at, you know, a downtown law firm or company.
00:14:09 - the common legal issues that clients might present with, such as, you know, housing and eviction or public benefits issues, employment issues, things like that. And then the students participate in a clinic where they and their law partners interview the clients. after the interviews, the students and lawyers participate in a case round, so they go to a separate room within the shelter, and the students have to orally report,
00:14:41 - and, and then engage in a brainstorming session of what next steps might be. And then the students memorialize, those interviews, they write up interview summaries that they then deliver to the practicing lawyers who will be taking on the cases. And then lastly, again, they also complete a self-reflection and, and send those thank you notes. And I haven't measured the efficacy in that way, however, I'll say a few things. Number one, the students have had this leg up on engaging
00:15:15 - of the sort of networking meet and greet opportunities that law schools generally offer to help law students, you know, meet future employers. Instead of this sort of fall setting of, of trying to get to know one another. In the Lawyer's Clearinghouse situation, they've really worked as a team with these lawyers to engage with a client. And so there's this sort of shared enterprise, and I think it boosts law students' confidence going into future work.

Developing Law Students' Professional Identities

00:15:46 - of helping the law students develop their professional identity and really see themselves in the role as lawyer. So instead of their second or third year going into, say, a clinic or an externship where they would be, it would be their first exposure to working with a client or working with a real person. my law students have sort of, you know, gotten rid of the, the cobwebs and had that, that initial experience first, so
00:16:18 - what their responsibilities are, in terms of learning the law and sharing the law with the client, and helping to advocate on the client's behalf. So whether or not the students substantively, are better at record sealing the second time around, or, you know, advocating in court and in sort of a different live client situation. I'm not sure it's a direct one-to-one,
00:16:48 - and evolution of the student as a lawyer, which does get seen when we think back to the pendulum swing of legal education, of going from, you know, practice to theory, swinging back to practice again. We're still in this pendulum swing back to practice. And, the law schools are really wrestling with how to create these practice ready lawyers. in 2014, the American Bar Association
00:17:18 - that all law students must engage in at least six credits of experiential learning. They're currently now in 2024, considering upping that requirement to 15 credits. So there's more, assuming this goes forward, and, and even if it doesn't, I'll just say certain states have requirements as well, of anywhere from six to 15 credits. New York and California being two of them, given that law students are now not only
00:17:51 - and more real experiential education work, but also are now required to do this work to become members of the bar, I think law schools need to start finding more ways to offer these opportunities to students, while also not detracting from the intellectual, rigorous study of legal doctrine. So perhaps it is these sort of more discreet experiences like the Lawyer's Clearinghouse
00:18:39 - to ensure that their students get these, you know, smaller but still impactful opportunities to engage with real people in real settings, to, to create this more holistic sense of what a law student is and what this future lawyer, can be.

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