Day 46: Why I Love Law Clinic Teaching

For the past two days, I’ve been meeting with students in this year’s Immigration Law Clinic, preparing for our work. It’s a lively group and we’ll be doing important work this year, litigating three cases in Immigration Court, applying for immigration benefits with DHS, and advocating for clients affected by ongoing litigation and regulatory changes like DACA.

We met at my house today and, after finishing our discussion of cases, hung out over a lunch of Middle Eastern food. It was a beautiful day and we could have gone outside, but the conversation kept flowing around the table so that’s where we stayed. I’m feeling energized and grateful.

The Accidental Clinician

When I went into law teaching, I never expected to be teaching in a clinic. Honestly, it was the last thing I wanted! As a clinician, you’re practicing law as well as teaching students. Although the students will take the lead on their cases, the person with the law license (that’s me) always bears the ultimate responsibility. When the students are on vacation and something happens on a case, I’m the one who’s in the office over the holidays. Seriously, isn’t this why we left law practice?!?!

I was hired to teach doctrinal classes - standing up at the podium and lecturing. But over the years, I came to find that more and more stale. Sure, there’s a certain amount of doctrine you just have to learn in the beginning of law school, and you have to learn how to do legal analysis and legal writing. It’s kind of like eating broccoli.

But, even in my doctrinal classes, I soon came to find that the broccoli goes down a lot easier if it’s in a palatable form. And the more I brought real-life applications into the classroom, the more my students ate it up. In my smaller classes, I found I could pair each student with a community organization that had a need for legal research, legislative advocacy, community organizing- things that require some legal knowledge but not a law license. In my large first year Property class that wasn’t possible, but students absorbed those arcane and technical laws better if I had them apply the rules in exercises and simulations.

So when I learned that WVU needed help in the Immigration Law Clinic six years ago, I thought about it for exactly one weekend. On Monday morning I went to the dean and offered to help. I’m still there.

The utility Value of Clinical Legal Education

The past six years have been a steep learning curve, on both immigration law and clinical pedagogy. But the longer I teach in the clinic and the more I learn about it, the more of a true believer I become.

The majority of our students will practice law, representing real clients. Some will work for large organizations that can afford to start them out with relatively low levels of responsibility, but many organizations don’t have that luxury. Even larger law firms are increasingly demanding that students come in “practice ready.”

And frankly, we can talk about assessment all day long, but the only way to become “practice ready” is to practice. In a law clinic, students get to practice at practice, so to speak. Wherever the weaknesses are, they will show up quickly. With enough support (a live issue in a law school that’s cutting faculty, of course), those weaknesses can be addressed with extra work, discussion, reflection, and another try.

A deeper Reason to be in the clinic

Photo by Will Dutton on Unsplash

That’s all good and utilitarian. But what I think is more important, even, is what working in a law clinic does for the soul. Spoiler: Law can be pretty abstract. Dry. When I was only teaching doctrinal classes, I felt divorced from the world in ways that part-time consulting did not seem to cure. The lack of a personal relationship with an individual client made the work seem less ... personal.

In a law clinic setting, students work with real people. They may be representing individuals or organizations, but no matter what, the client is a real person or group with real problems that they care about so much they’ve sought out professional help. This can be a rude awakening - and in the current generation we’re seeing troublingly high levels of anxiety that, for some students, can make practice difficult. (More thoughts on that in another post.)

But for other students - still the majority, I think - being across the conference table or on the other end of the phone from a real person is a life-changing moment. For many, that moment - looking at another person, feeling empathy for their situation, being called upon and calling upon oneself to look within for resources (now what do I remember from that first year contracts class?) - that moment is bracing, like diving into cold water.

But after a while - an hour, maybe a few days or weeks - something happens. The student looks within (or within the law books) and realizes - they may have an answer. They research it, discuss it with their partner, their supervisor. This is something. Maybe I can do this. They present it to the client and it gels into a plan. The plan gets implemented - and lo and behold, IT WORKS. They achieve a resolution that helps the client move forward with their life.

For some students, this is a revelation. Like the exhilaration that comes a few seconds after diving into that cold pool, like every cell in the body coming vividly to life all in one instant. For some, that moment can mark the beginning of maturity, of self-actualization, even if it’s not fully realized until later.

As a professor, seeing this happen again and again, empathizing too with the client and seeing their problems get solved through the magic of the students’ realization - that’s a rare privilege.