Clinical Education at 50: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, and Where We’re Going
Celebrating American University Washington College of Law Clinical Program’s 50th Anniversary Co-Sponsored with the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law
The Clinical Program of American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL) is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2022. AUWCL’s clinics long have been recognized for their excellence in pedagogical approaches, breadth and depth of clinical offerings, quality and quantity of faculty clinical scholarship, and integration of clinical faculty into law school faculty and governance. The Clinical Program’s commitment to social justice lies at the core of its history of engagement with teaching, scholarship, and community.
To mark this important occasion, the law school is hosting a symposium on Friday, October 28, 2022. The symposium is co-sponsored with the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law (“Journal”). The live event will focus on the number of contexts in which clinical programs at AUWCL and elsewhere have influenced law school curricula, law practice, and the skills and values law students have developed in clinics and in their later practice, all while pursuing the social justice goals that are part and parcel of most if not all clinical programs.
For the publication, the Journal is interested in publishing selected papers written in connection with the symposium on the broad topic of “Teaching and Promoting Social Justice in Law School Clinical Programs”. In particular, the Journal is interested in receiving papers that would address issues such as the following (the list is by no means exhaustive):
● Communicating to students and clients the centrality of the client to clinical legal education and client-centered counseling, pedagogy and practice;
● Addressing strategies to overcome barriers to client-centeredness in clinical programs, including working with interpreters and acknowledging and bridging difference;
● The role of narrative in case theory and lawyering generally;
● Teaching about trauma-informed lawyering and vicarious/secondary trauma;
● Addressing law student-clinic client relations with indigent communities through the lens of acknowledging systemic racism, ableism, sexism, and other forms of bias;
● The role of technology in clinic practice in the context of client communications and the practice of law;
● Expansion of clinical education from litigation to transactional and other non-litigation clinics;
● The collaboration and impact of collaborating with external partners, including medical-legal partnerships and social work partnerships, between law school clinics and local community organizations;
● Addressing best practices in fostering community-clinic relationships;
● Clinics’ evolving role within the law school, the university, and the community; and
● The role of clinics in addressing natural, economic, or judicial disasters (e.g., post-Hurricane Katrina, the foreclosure crisis, the pandemic, and post-Dobbs).
If interested, please submit an article or abstract to rdiners@wcl.american.edu and cc gl-articles@wcl.american.edu. Abstracts are due by Friday, August 26th at 11:59 PM EDT. Articles may be submitted at any time prior to the symposium; the Journal will make its publication decisions on a rolling basis, so the earlier the submission the better. Preference will be given to pieces that include a novel legal argument, contribute to the Journal’s mission of furthering social justice in the legal practice, and are approximately 15,000 words in length. Student submissions will not be accepted. The Clinical Program will accept papers to be presented at the symposium, whereas the Journal will be responsible for evaluating and selecting papers for publication. As of this date, we anticipate that the Symposium will occur in a hybrid, in-person and virtual, format.
Please feel free to address any questions regarding the symposium to any of us at the email addresses below. We look forward to hearing from you.
Susan Bennett, sbennet@wcl.american.edu
Bob Dinerstein, rdiners@wcl.american.edu
Anita Sinha, asinha@wcl.american.edu
Esther Davila, jgspl-symposium-editor@wcl.american.edu