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The Global Evolution of Clinical Legal Education: More than a Method
14 Dec 2017-
TL;DR: In this article, the historical origins of clinical experiments in the earliest days of US university legal education, and the now-global reach of clinical pedagogy as a proven tool for effective training of legal professionals are discussed.
Abstract: Globally, the methodologies of legal education have not changed in any fundamental way, some methods dating back hundreds of years. Law schools have relied, for too long, on passive learning methods such as lectures or cases. Clinical legal education provides an alternative that is more than just another pedagogical method. It provides a way for students to experience their emerging professional selves, while providing services or projects with poor and underrepresented clients. This book documents both the historical origins of clinical experiments in the earliest days of US university legal education, and the now-global reach of clinical pedagogy as a proven tool for effective training of legal professionals.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define what the author means by clinical legal education and discuss its world-wide dissemination, primarily through foundations and government funding: the Ford Foundation, the Open Society programs of George Soros, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the American Bar Association's CEELI program, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and some international financial institutions such as the World Bank.
Abstract: Clinical legal education is one of the most exciting and well-accepted innovations in legal education during the 20th Century. This article defines what the author means by clinical legal education and discusses its world-wide dissemination, primarily through foundations and government funding: the Ford Foundation, the Open Society programs of George Soros, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the American Bar Association's CEELI program, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and some international financial institutions such as the World Bank. The article briefly examines 'best practices' in the globalization of clinics in Poland, South Africa and Chile.
26 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify a number of international initiatives that have contributed to, reflect, or facilitate global higher education mobility, including European Union initiatives, the Bologna Process which led to the creation of the European Higher Education Area, and higher education initiatives of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.
Abstract: This article identifies a number of international initiatives that have contributed to, reflect, or facilitate global higher education mobility. The article begins by presenting statistics about global higher education mobility. The sections that follow address a number of “hard law” and “soft law” international initiatives that promote such mobility. The initiatives discussed in the article include, inter alia, European Union initiatives, the Bologna Process which led to the creation of the European Higher Education Area, and higher education initiatives of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The paper concludes with some observations about these developments. The goals of the article are twofold: 1) to give the reader a sense of the breadth, depth, and influence of international initiatives regarding higher education; and 2) to motivate the reader to learn more about these initiatives.
16 citations
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TL;DR: For example, the authors explores the fundamental strengths and weaknesses of American legal education and training, provides an overview of the Japanese and Korean legal systems, and examines how Japan and Korea might maximize success and overcome challenges now that each country has decided to sculpt their legal education systems on the American model.
Abstract: Over the past decade, Japan and Korea have remodeled their legal education systems. As both countries struggled to counteract the economic malaise encountered in the mid-1990s, policy makers turned to the law for solutions. Japan and Korea devised and implemented substantial legal reforms. To further these reforms, both countries decided to increase their lawyer populations and implement “American-style” professional law schools designed to enhance lawyer competency and quality. The new professional law schools also constituted a response to criticism and dissatisfaction with the abstract nature of traditional legal education in both countries. In Japan and Korea, legal education at the university level has traditionally been an academic affair. Although many Japanese and Korean college students have engaged in legal studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels, university studies have not directly related to bar examination preparations or practical legal skills training. Rather, undergraduate law departments have taught general theory and legal principles. The graduate study of law has generally focused on raising academicians, instead of legal professionals. Most law graduates never become licensed attorneys. In fact, in the past, a law degree has not been required to sit for the Japanese or Korean national bar examinations. Japan and Korea have traditionally maintained very small and elite lawyer populations, and bar examination passage rates have typically averaged around three percent. With the adoption of “American-style” professional law schools and reconfigured educational missions, Japan and Korea face the challenge of implementing new methodologies and ideals, some of which have been successfully used by U.S. law schools for over a century. Having rolled out professional law schools in April 2004, Japan is already five years into its experiment. It is struggling. Korea just recently implemented its new system in March 2009, and its challenges lie ahead. This Article explores the fundamental strengths and weaknesses of American legal education and training, provides an overview of the Japanese and Korean legal systems, and examines how Japan and Korea might maximize success and overcome challenges now that each country has decided to sculpt their legal education systems on the American model. If done correctly, Japan and Korea stand to benefit from the adoption of many of the ideals, methodologies, programs, and extra-curricular activities associated with an “American-style” legal education. At the same time, however, U.S. law schools are imperfect and require improvement. As such, Japan and Korea need to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the American legal education system and adapt their professional law schools accordingly.
14 citations
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TL;DR: The Bologna Process has now grown to forty-six countries, including all of the EU Member States and nineteen non-EU countries as mentioned in this paper, and it is intended to help Europe better compete in the higher education field.
Abstract: Virtually all European countries are in the midst of a massive multi-year project intended to dramatically restructure higher education in Europe. This project, which is known as the Bologna Process or Sorbonne-Bologna, began less than ten years ago when four European Union (EU) countries signed a relatively vague agreement. The Bologna Process has now grown to forty-six countries, including all of the EU Member States and nineteen non-EU countries. The Bologna Process participants have agreed to form the European Higher Education Area or EHEA by 2010; among other goals, the EHEA is intended to help Europe better compete in the higher education field. Although a number of U.S. higher education organizations are familiar with the Bologna Process and its implications for the U.S., the U.S. legal education community does not appear to have paid particularly close attention to these developments. This article provides a brief history and overview of the Bologna Process, including its ten action lines and information about its effect on European legal education. The article then explains the implications of the Bologna Process for U.S. law schools, legal educators and administrators, and the AALS. This article recommends several concrete steps that the U.S. legal education community should take in response to these developments.
13 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, a theory in the field of legal pedagogy is proposed to identify clinical concepts, define clinical education's roots, goals, and objectives, and define clinical concepts.
Abstract: With growing global scholarship on clinical education, a theory in the field of legal pedagogy is emerging. Such a theory identifies clinical concepts, defines clinical education’s roots, goals, na...
13 citations
References
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TL;DR: Critical legal studies (CLS) as discussed by the authors is a scholarly project of recent vintage, which has attracted wide interest. But the nature of the project is not fully understood, and the implications of a "Critical" approach to legal studies have not been fully realized even by those who participate in the movement.
Abstract: Critical Legal Studies (CLS), a scholarly project of recent vintage, has attracted wide interest. But the nature of the project is not fully understood, and the implications of a "Critical" approach to legal studies have not been fully realized even by those who participate in the movement. The ideas upon which CLS rests-notions about relationships among the ideas we hold about law and society, the structures of social life we are engaged in, and the actions we take-present a challenge to current legal scholarship as well as to the organization of American society. These ideas derive from a variety of sources in legal and social theory, and not all of them are fully worked out or easily understood. This essay is an effort to clarify some of these ideas and to draw out some of their implications for research on the history, meaning, and impact of law.
181 citations
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TL;DR: Dezalay et al. as mentioned in this paper conducted studies at the Global Studies Research Program (GSRP) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinmres de Vaucresson (CRV).
Abstract: Law and lawyers are being remade by processes of global restructuring, even as they actively participate in and shape these processes. New transnational and global economic * This paper is based on studies conducted by research groups at the Global Studies Research Program (GSRP) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinmres de Vaucresson (CRV). The authors have been assisted by numerous colleagues at both institutions, in particular by Alain Bancaud (CRIV) and David Delaney (GSRP), and have benefitted from contacts with Boaventura de Sousa Santos of the University of Coimbra and the encouragement and support of Bryant Garth of the American Bar Foundation. t David M. Trubek (B.A., 1957, Wisconsin; LL.B., 1961, Yale) is Dean of the Office of International Studies and is the Voss-Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ft Yves Dezalay is a Senior Researcher at the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires de Vaucresson, Pans. \"f' Ruth Buchanan (A.B., 1985, Princeton; LL.B., 1988, Umversity of Victoria; LL.M.. 1993, Wisconsin) was formerly the coordinator of the Political Economy of Legal Change Research Circle at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of New Brunswick, Canada. \"ff I John R. Davis (A.B., 1970, Boston College; Ph.D., 1986, Wisconsin; J.D., 1989, Wisconsin) is a Research Assistant of East Asian Legal Studies at the Office of International Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a private practitioner in
170 citations
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90 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors report the results of the first of a series of randomized evaluations of legal assistance programs, which is designed to measure the effect of both an offer of and the actual use of representation, although it was not possible to measure constructively all effects of actual use.
Abstract: We report the results of the first of a series of randomized evaluations of legal assistance programs This series of evaluations is designed to measure the effect of both an offer of and the actual use of representation, although it was not possible in the first study we report here to measure constructively all effects of actual use The results of this first evaluation are unexpected, and we caution against both over-generalization and under-generalization Specifically, the offers of representation came from a law school clinic, which provided high-quality and well-respected assistance in administrative “appeals” to state ALJs of initial rulings regarding eligibility for unemployment benefits (these “appeals” were actually de novo mini-trials) Our randomized evaluation found that the offers of representation from the clinic had no statistically significant effect on the probability that an unemployment claimant would prevail in the “appeal,” but that the offers did delay proceedings by (on average) about two weeks Actual use of representation (from any source) also delayed the proceeding; we could come to no firm conclusions regarding the effect of actual use of representation (from any source) on the probability that claimants would prevail Keeping in mind the high-quality and well-respected nature of the representation the law school clinic offered and provided, we explore three possible explanations for our results, each of which has implications for delivery of legal services We conduct a review of previous quantitative research attempting to measure representation effects We find that excepting the results of two randomized studies separated by more than thirty years, this literature provides virtually no credible quantitative information on the effect of an offer of or actual use of legal representation We discuss disadvantages, advantages, and future prospects of randomized studies in the provision of legal assistance
57 citations
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TL;DR: In the first half of the nineteenth century, a model of legal education called legal science became prominent in American universities as mentioned in this paper and the idea of teaching law as a science was not new in American education.
Abstract: In the first half of the nineteenth century, a model of legal education called “legal science” became prominent in American universities. The idea of teaching law as a science was not new in American education. In 1823 Timothy Dwight wrote that Tapping Reeve, at Litchfield, taught law “as a science, and not merely nor principally as a mechanical business; nor as a collection of loose independent fragments, but as a regular well-compacted system.” Dwight, however, used “science” in its older sense of an organized body of knowledge rather than in its emergent sense as a method characteristic of the study of nature. Similarly, James Kent and Joseph Story, Francis Hilliard, and Silas Jones all thought of themselves as approaching law as a science, but what they meant was that law was an outgrowth of the moral sciences.
56 citations