Understanding how a law clinic can contribute towards students’ development of professional responsibility

Authors

  • Ann Thanaraj Cumbria University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.19164/ijcle.v23i4.521

Abstract

There is rich international literature spanning over decades giving valuable insights into the educational benefits of Clinical Legal Education (CLE), however there is little in the way of empirical data evaluating the link between utilizing CLE to develop specific skills. This paper aims to discover the link between CLE as a learning methodology and the extent to which students become more aware of professional responsibility skills after a clinical experience. The study employed a phenomenographic methodology to evaluate the variations in student learning. The findings suggest that students believe they have developed a greater sense of awareness and learning of a variety of lawyering skills and a greater awareness of values and characteristics of a competent lawyer through the clinical experience. 

References

Gold, N. (2015) ‘Clinic is the Basis for a Complete Legal Education: Quality Assurance, Learning Outcomes and the Clinical Method’, International Journal of Clinical legal education, Vol. 22, No. 1, available at: http://www.northumbriajournals.co.uk/index.php/ijcle/issue/view/53

Mary Ann Noone in Noone, M.A., (2013) ‘Time to rework the brand ‘Clinical Legal Education’, International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, Vol. 19, No.1 available at: http://www.northumbriajournals.co.uk/index.php/ijcle/issue/view/13

Grimes, R. (1995) “Legal Skills and Clinical Legal Education” Web Journal of Current Legal Issues Vol. 3; MacCrate, R. (2004) “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Building the Continuum of Legal Education and Professional Development” Clinical Law Review, Vol. 10, Spring edition

Giddings, J. (2008) ‘Contemplating the Future of Clinical Legal Education’, Griffith Law Review Vol. 15, p.15, available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/29469123_Contemplating_the_Future_of_Clinical_Legal_Education;

Hall J., Kerrigan K., (2011) ‘Clinic and the Wider Law Curriculum’, International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, Vol. 15, available at: http://www.northumbriajournals.co.uk/index.php/ijcle/issue/view/15;

Stuckey et. al. (2007) ‘Best Practices for Legal Education’, Clinical Legal Education Association, available at: http://www.cleaweb.org/Resources/Documents/best_practices-full.pdf

Stuckey, R. (2006) ‘Can We Assess What We Purport to Teach In Clinical Law Courses? International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, Vol 9, available at: http://journals.northumbria.ac.uk/index.php/ijcle/article/view/85

Evans A. & Hyams R. (2008) ‘Independent Evaluations of Clinical Legal Education Programs: Appropriate Objectives and Processes in an Australian Setting’, Vol 17, No. 1, Griffith Law Review

Foley et al. (2012) ‘Teaching professionalism in legal clinic – what new practitioners say is important’, International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, Vol 17, available at: http://www.northumbriajournals.co.uk/index.php/ijcle/issue/view/8

American Bar Association section of Legal Education and admissions to the bar – An educational continuum, report of the task force on law schools and the profession: Narrowing the Gap (1992), p.207, available at: http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/misc/legal_education/2013_legal_education_and_professional_development_maccrate_report).authcheckdam.pdf Also known as the MacCrate report.

Moliterno, J. (1996) ‘Legal Education, Experiential Education, and Professional Responsibility’, Vol. 38, William and Mary Law Review, p.78, available at: http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1657&context=wmlr

Cruess & Cruess (2012) ‘Teaching Professionalism: General Principles’ Medical Teacher, Vol.4(4), p.259 available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987476/

Schon, D. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action (1983) New York: Basic Books, p.7

Clubb, K. (2014) ‘Masters of our Destiny - The Integration of law clinic into post graduate Masters provision. International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, Vol. 20 (2), available at: http://www.northumbriajournals.co.uk/index.php/ijcle/issue/view/11

GMC, The Effectiveness of Continuing Professional Development - Final Report, 2010 College of Emergency Medicine is available at: http://www.gmc-uk.org/Effectiveness_of_CPD_Final_Report.pdf_34306281.pdf

Sullivan et al. (2007) ‘Educating lawyers: Preparation for the profession of law’, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, p. 187–88, available at: http://archive.carnegiefoundation.org/pdfs/elibrary/elibrary_pdf_632.pdf

Evans A. & Hyams R. (2008) ‘Independent Evaluations of Clinical Legal Education Programs: Appropriate Objectives and Processes in an Australian Setting’, Vol 17, No. 1, Griffith Law Review. p.14.

Ogilvy & Czapanskiy, (2005) ‘Clinical Legal Education: An Annotated Bibliography’ Clinical Law Review, Special Issue No. 2, available at: http://faculty.cua.edu/ogilvy/Biblio05clr.htm.

Shultz, M. & Zedeck, S., (2009) ‘Predicting Lawyer Effectiveness: A New Assessment for Use in Law School Admission Decisions’, available at: http://papers.ssrn.comlsol3/papers.cfm?abstractjid=1442118.

Evans, A. & Palermo, J., (2009) ‘Lawyers and Ethics in Practice: The Impact of Clinical and Ethics Curricula on Lawyers' Ethical Decision-Making’, Monash Univ. Faculty of Law, Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2007, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1349427

Aaronson, M., (2002) ‘Thinking Like a Fox: Four Overlapping Domains of Good Lawyering’, Clinical Law Review, Vol.9, available at: http://repository.uchastings.edu/faculty_scholarship/7

Breger, M., et al. (2004), ‘Teaching Professionalism in Context: Insights from Students, Clients, Adversaries and Judges’, South Carolina Law Review, Vol. 55, pp. 303-347, available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=566061

Gage, C, (1998) ‘Preparing Students for the Profession: Clinical Education, Collaborative Pedagogy, and the Realities of Practice for the New Lawyer’ Clinical Law Review, Vol. 4, p.485, available at: https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=4+Clinical+L.+Rev.+485&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=4c8ba8ea21344d37b5dcc1a2c2684354

Engler, R., (2003) ‘From 10 to 20: A Guide to Utilizing the MacCrate Report over the Next Decade’, Vol. 23 Pace Law Review, p.519, available at: http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/plr/vol23/iss2/4

Hyams, R. (2008) ‘On teaching students to ‘act like a lawyer’: What sort of lawyer?’, International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, Vol. 13, available at: http://journals.northumbria.ac.uk/index.php/ijcle/article/view/65

Thanaraj, A. (2012), ‘Student engagement with e-portfolios: purpose, benefits and problems’, Practitioner Research in Higher Education, Vol 6 (2) page 25-40 available at: http://194.81.189.19/ojs/index.php/prhe/article/view/128

Marton, F. (1986). Phenomenography - A research

approach investigating different understandings of reality. Journal of Thought, Vol. 21, p.28-49.

Säljö, R. (1988). Learning in educational settings: Methods of inquiry. In P. Ramsden (eds.), improving learning: New perspectives. London: Kogan Page, pp.32-48;

Marton, F., Pong, W. Y. (2005) ‘On the unit of description in phenomenography’, Higher Education Research and Development Vol. 24, p.335

Anderberg, E. (2000) ‘Word meaning and conceptions: An empirical study of relationships between students’ thinking and use of language when reasoning about a problem Instructional Science’, Vol.28, available at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/l82l42t6356h3m31/

Walsh, E. (2000) ‘Phenomenographic analysis of interview transcripts’. In Bowden, J., Walsh, E. (eds) Phenomenography. Melbourne: RMIT University Press, 19–33.

Anderberg, E. (2000) ‘Word meaning and conceptions: An empirical study of relationships between students’ thinking and use of language when reasoning about a problem Instructional Science’, Vol.28, available at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/l82l42t6356h3m31/

Svensson, L., Anderberg, E., Alvegard, C., Johansson, T. (2006a) The interplay between thought and language in understanding problems from a student perspective. In Svensson, L., Anderberg, E., Alvegard, C., Johansson, T. (eds): Pedagogical Reports: The interplay between language and thought in understanding problems from a student perspective. Lund, Sweden: Department of Education, Lund University, p.1–5

Marton, F. (1994) Phenomenography. in: Husén, T., Postlethwaite, T.N. (eds) The International Encyclopaedia of Education, 2nd edn. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 4424–4429.

Sjöström, B., & Dahlgren, L. O. (2002). Applying phenomenography in nursing research. Journal of Advanced Nursing, Vol. 40(3), p.339-345.

Akerlind, G.S. (2005b) Variation and commonality in phenomenographic research methods. Higher Education Research & Development 24(4): 321–334, available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360500284672

Bruce, C., Buckingham, L., Hynd, J., et al. (2004) Ways of experiencing the act of learning to program: a phenomenographic study of programming students at university Journal of Information Technology Education, Vol. 3, p.143–160, available at: http://jite.org/documents/Vol3/v3p143-160-121.pdf

England and Wales - Solicitors Regulation Authority, Legal Practice Course: Outcomes 2011, Version 2, available at: www.sra.org.uk/documents/students/lpc/Outcomes-Sept2011.pdf Furthermore, the 2013 report on the Legal Education and Training Review can be found at: http://letr.org.uk/

Stuckey, R. (2007) ‘Best Practices for Legal Education’ available at: http://www.cleaweb.org/Resources/Documents/best_practices-full.pdf

Boon, A., & Webb, J., (2008) ‘Legal Education and Training in England and Wales: Back to the Future?’, Journal of Legal Education, Volume 58, Number 1, available at: http://letr.org.uk/references/storage/U7RC3RR2/Boon%20%26%20Webb,%20back%20to%20the%20future.pdf

Quality Assurance Agency, Law Benchmark statements (July 2015) http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/SBS-Law-15.pdf

Stuckey (2014), ‘Can We Assess What We Purport to Teach In Clinical Law Courses?’, Vol. 9 International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, available at: http://www.northumbriajournals.co.uk/index.php/ijcle/article/view/85

Grimes & Gibbons (2016) ‘Assessing experiential learning – us, them and the others’, Special Issue Problematising Assessment in International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, Vol 23(1) available at: http://www.northumbriajournals.co.uk/index.php/ijcle/article/view/492

Daley, B. (1999) ‘Novice to Expert: How Do Professionals Learn?’, Adult Education Quarterly, vol.49, available at: http://newprairiepress.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1998&context=aerc

Whitehead, J. (1985) An analysis of an individual's educational development - the basis for personally orientated action research. Published in Shipman, M. (Ed.) Educational Research: Principles, Policies and Practice, pp. 97-108; Falmer; London, p.97.

Whitehead, J. (2009) Self-study, Living Educational Theories, and the Generation of Educational Knowledge, Studying Teacher Education, 5(2); p.107-11.

Whitehead, J. (1989). Creating a Living Educational Theory from questions of the kind, 'How do I improve my practice?', Cambridge Journal of Education, 19, 41-52, available at: http://actionresearch.net/writings/writing.shtml

Whitehead, J. & McNiff, J. (2004) Ontological, epistemological and methodological commitments in practitioner-research. Paper presented at the BERA 04 Symposium 17 Sept. in Manchester on: "Have We Created A New Epistemology For The New Scholarship Of Educational Enquiry Through Practitioner Research? Developing Sustainable Global Educational Networks Of Communication

Quigley, A. & Kuhne, G (1997) ‘Creating practical knowledge: Posing problems, solving problems and improving daily practice’, New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education. No . 73. San Francisco, CA : Jossey-Bass..

Hammersley, M. (1993) ‘On practitioner ethnography’ in Hammersley, M. ‘Controversies in Classroom Research. Buckingham: Open University Press, p. 430)

Healey, M. & Jenkins, A. (2000) Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory and Its Application in Geography in Higher Education, Journal of Geography, 99, pp.185-195.

Leering, M (2014) ‘Conceptualizing Reflective Practice for Legal Professionals’, Journal of Law and Social Policy, p.99-100, available at: http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1191&context=jlsp

Downloads

Published

2016-11-30

Issue

Section

Reviewed Articles