Alice Alexander & Jeffrey Smith, “Law Student Supervision – An Organized System”

This article broadly outlines a supervision model for legal employers and law students beyond the legal clinic context. It suggests that an organized system of supervision is essential to the successful employment of law students. It also ensures better work products from students while helping students obtain a significantly improved practical legal education experience. Additionally, this article sets out a series of categories with respect to relevant tasks used by employers to assess student performance, including research ability and legal analysis. Intellectual capacity, writing skill, clarity of oral expression, judgement, responsibility, client relations, “plus traits” (i.e., sense of humour, interest, even-tempered, respectful, etc.).

In this paper, supervision is examined through two separate models: the traditional model and the contemporary model. Supervision refers to the process of directing the completion of work assigned to law students. Under the traditional model of supervision, the responsibility for directing and evaluating the student’s work falls on the employer.  This renders students in a position where they are not expected or encouraged to participate actively in their practical legal education. In contrast, the contemporary model of cooperative supervision suggests that active interplay between the employer and student, with the responsibility for supervision divided between them making it more fit for the uncertainty of real time and work constraints that permeate the legal field. In the contemporary model of supervision, there are two basic components of supervision form the employer’s perspective: direction and feedback. The former requires adequate explanation with respect to the work assignments, while the latter requires assigning tasks with varying degrees of difficulty, ensuring that students have enough but not too much work, and assignments should encompass a spectrum of substantive and procedural areas of concentration.

Alice Alexander & Jeffrey Smith, “Law Student Supervision – An Organized System” (1989) 15:4 Leg Econ 38.