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Full-Text Articles in Law

Building A Culture Of Scholarship With New Clinical Teachers By Writing About Social Justice Lawyering, Susan Bennett, Binny Miller, Michelle Assad, Maria Dooner, Mariam Hinds, Jessica Millward, Citlalli Ochoa, Charles Ross, Anne Schaufele, Caroline Wick Jan 2023

Building A Culture Of Scholarship With New Clinical Teachers By Writing About Social Justice Lawyering, Susan Bennett, Binny Miller, Michelle Assad, Maria Dooner, Mariam Hinds, Jessica Millward, Citlalli Ochoa, Charles Ross, Anne Schaufele, Caroline Wick

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

This Article is a collection of essays about teaching social justice lawyering, as seen through the eyes of eight practitioners-in-residence in the clinical program at American University’s Washington College of Law (“WCL”). They include: Michelle Assad, Maria Dooner, Mariam Hinds, Jessica Millward, Citlalli Ochoa, Charles Ross, Anne Schaufele, and Caroline Wick. They teach in seven clinics, including the Civil Advocacy Clinic, the Criminal Justice Clinic, the Community Economic and Equity Development Clinic, the Disability Rights Law Clinic, the Immigrant Justice Clinic, the International Human Rights Law Clinic, and the Janet R. Spragens Federal Income Tax Clinic. We use the terms …


Fifty Years Of Clinical Legal Education At American University Washington College Of Law: The Evolution Of A Movement In Theory, Practice, And People, Robert D. Dinerstein, Elliott S. Milstein, Ann C. Shalleck Jan 2023

Fifty Years Of Clinical Legal Education At American University Washington College Of Law: The Evolution Of A Movement In Theory, Practice, And People, Robert D. Dinerstein, Elliott S. Milstein, Ann C. Shalleck

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Clinical legal education has evolved substantially in the fifty years since Elliott Milstein initiated the clinical model at American University Washington College of Law (“WCL”) that, notwithstanding numerous changes in program and personnel since that time, remains essentially in effect today. In this Article, we explore the theoretical, pedagogical, structural, programmatic, and personnel developments that have occurred during this period. We link these developments to broader developments within the national and international clinical legal education spheres. WCL’s Clinical Program, and its clinical faculty, have been leaders in shaping these developments, but, in the best clinical tradition, we have not done …


Trauma-Informed (As A Matter Of) Course, Natalie Netzel Jan 2023

Trauma-Informed (As A Matter Of) Course, Natalie Netzel

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Law students are impacted by trauma and law professors are in a position to help by adopting a trauma-informed approach as a matter of universal precaution. The 2021 Survey of Law Student Well-Being (“SLSWB”) revealed that over twenty percent of responding law students meet criteria that indicate they should be evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”). The study also revealed that almost fifty percent of responding students reported an important motivation for attending law school was experiencing a trauma or injustice. Put differently, law schools are full of law students who have experienced trauma, many of whom are actively struggling …


Unsettling Human Rights Clinical Pedagogy And Practice In Settler Colonial Contexts, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Caroline Bishop Laporte Jan 2023

Unsettling Human Rights Clinical Pedagogy And Practice In Settler Colonial Contexts, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Caroline Bishop Laporte

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

In settler colonial contexts, law and educational institutions operate as structures of oppression, extraction, erasure, disempowerment, and continuing violence against colonized peoples. Consequently, clinical legal advocacy often can reinforce coloniality—the logic that perpetuates structural violence against individuals and groups resisting colonization and struggling for survival as peoples. Critical legal theory, including Third World Approaches to International Law (“TWAIL”), has long exposed colonial laws and practices that entrench discriminatory, racialized power structures and prevent transformative international human rights advocacy. Understanding and responding to these critiques can assist in decolonizing international human rights clinical law teaching and practice but is insufficient in …