Shaped by Educational, Professional and Social Crises: The History of Law Student Pro Bono Service

This article examines the history of student pro bono service in legal education. It reveals that the flow of expressed concern for the poor within the legal academy has been directly tied to the existence of a real or perceived crisis -- a crisis of pedagogical need, of social unrest, and of public confidence in lawyers. Law student pro bono service has been perceived as the solution to these crises. The structure varied, entangling the development of pro bono programs with the development of the regulation of the profession and of clinical legal education.

The history of law student pro bono service is divided into three distinct eras, which form the structure of this essay: 1) community-based service (pre-WWII) in response to the “crisis” of legal education moving from the law office to the university and to the rise of urban poverty; 2) cause-based service (1960’s and 70’s), shaped by federal funding, in response to the crisis of social unrest; and 3) ethics-based service (1980 – 2005) in response to the crisis of eroding public confidence in the ethics of lawyers.

This article ends with an exploration of recent research that suggests that curriculum-based pro bono is the most effective at producing graduates who engage in pro bono. It offers a directive for the current era of pro bono service in legal education: an integrated pro bono curriculum.

Beyond Externships and Clinics: Integrating Access to Justice Education into the Law School Curriculum

In January 2011, at the AALS Annual Meeting, the Section on Pro Bono and Public Service held a panel discussion on “innovative curricular components.” The call for papers asked for proposals describing projects that engage faculty in teaching that is likely to fulfill the promise of Bylaws 6-1 -- to instill in all graduates a commitment to justice and to public service as core values. Six papers were selected and presented, and will be published in the Journal of Legal Education.

This introductory paper, drawn from my contribution to the prior year’s AALS workshop on “Exploring the Role of Pro Bono” in legal education, sets the context for the others. First, it provides a quick overview of the development of law school pro bono programs, a history that explains the gap that grew between the law school curriculum and pro bono programs. Second, it sets out the research basis for the call to integrate the teaching of the ethic of pro bono service throughout the curriculum. Finally, it notes how the programs described in the other papers meet this challenge.

A Glossary for Experiential Education in Law Schools

Without a consensus on nomenclature, comparisons and even conversations have been difficult. Institutions use different terms when referring to the same types of learning experiences, and use the same terms -- such as “practicum” or even “clinic” – inconsistently. The increasing proliferation of inconsistent terminology for experiential education offerings makes it difficult for prospective students comparing law schools, for regulators evaluating law schools, for legal employers assessing prospective hires, and for law schools engaging in self-assessment and redesign.

This glossary was written by a collaboration of law teachers, led by Cindy Adcock, who are members of the Alliance for Experiential Learning in Law. These teachers are from a range of law schools and use a range of teaching methodologies. Their goal was to create a common vocabulary to help bring clarity to the nomenclature chaos.

Terms are organized into three categories: pedagogy, program design and course design. Significant delineations include experiential education pedagogy, which includes education through supervised practice experiences as well as simulated practice experiences, and clinical legal education, which is limited to education through supervised practice experiences, whether taught solely by faculty or by faculty in partnership with legal professionals external to the law school. Significant inclusions are programs not always considered experiential education: Cooperative Education Program, Lawyering Skills Competition Program, Legal Analysis, Writing, and Research Program, and Pro Bono Program.

This glossary does not set forth evaluative criteria for experiential offerings, leaving that task to regulatory and other legal education groups. It does, however, provide a definition for the ideal experiential education program: an integrated lawyering program.

AALS HANDBOOK ON AMERICAN LAW SCHOOL PRO BONO PROGRAMS

From July 1999 to June 2001, I served as the Director of the Pro Bono Project at the Association of American Law Schools. The material within this handbook is based largely on information I gathered through site visits at and correspondence with law schools. It focuses on the nuts and bolts of the operation of pro bono programs in law schools in the United States. It is designed to help schools inspire and enable their students to live up to the legal profession’s highest ideals of public service.