Author: Meris Bray
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Margaret Castles & Carol Boothby, “What Hat Shall I Wear Today? Exploring the Professional and Ethical Implications of Law Clinic Supervision”
This chapter proposes that it is valuable for clinical supervisors to identify and understand their various roles with respect to their associated professional expectations to ensure that they adopt a mindful and balanced approach to supervision. Clinical supervisors hold many roles: legal practice manager, senior lawyer, risk manager, assessor of written work and performance, counsellor,…
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Liz Omand, “What makes for good supervision and whose responsibility is it anyway?”
Liz Omand suggests that within the counseling and psychotherapy, the supervisory relationship is complicated and may lead to experiences of anxiety, frustration, conflict and misunderstanding while also fostering excitement and satisfaction. Thus, to be a good supervisor, there are several qualities that supervisors must espouse. Supervisors must be prepared to learn by way of elaboration…
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Jeff Giddings, “The Assumption of Responsibility: Supervision Practices in Experiential Legal Education”
Effective supervision requires responsiveness to students involved, what they have already learned, and what they are affected to learn within their clinical experiences. This paper argues that without an effective supervisor to support and appropriately challenge students, some learning opportunities within the legal workplace will be lost. In the legal context, “supervision can involve a…
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George Critchlow, “Professional Responsibility, Student Practice, and the Clinical Teacher’s Duty to Intervene”
Similar to other American clinical legal education research on supervision, this article addresses when intervention is required in the student-client relationship. It is difficult for supervisors to know when they should intervene as they balance the student-teacher and the student-client relationship. Clinical teachers must consider client expectations, student competency, teacher competency, and the interests of…
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Gemma Smyth & Marion Overholt, “Framing Supervisory Relationships in Clinical Law: the Role of Critical Pedagogy “
This paper focuses on the student-lawyer supervisory relationship in Canadian clinical legal clinics. The authors argue that students rely on their clinic supervisor’s approach to practice as a valid (and often primary construction) of the meaning of legal practice. These relationships can play a crucial role in the formation of students’ professional identity. Clinic supervisors…
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David F Chavkin, “Am I My Client’s Lawyer: Role Definition and the Clinical Supervisor”
This article is a good example of an early American clinical legal educator’s approach to supervision. The author struggles with the degree to which students should assume autonomy for their work (versus the supervisor), ultimately arguing that students should assume significant autonomy in their work. Two aspects of student learning maximize student autonomy: (1) an…
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Cynthia Batt & Harriet N Katz, “Confronting Students: Evaluation in the Process of Mentoring Student Professional Development”
This article addresses mentoring the professional development of students in clinical and externship placements. Through a series of survey questions answered by clinic supervisors, supervisors indicated that professional qualities they sought in students included a conscientious approach to work, curiosity and empathy, and appropriate behaviour standards. Supervisors set out a series of challenges they face…
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Clinical Legal Education Association, “Handbook for New Clinical Teachers”
This handbook was first drafted in 1999 and has been updated many times since. The handbook is aimed at new clinicians in the United States. It contains short explainers of various important topics in clinical legal education, including supervision. The handbook contains useful information for Canadian clinicians, but has a very strong American perspective. The…
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Barry Cooke & James Taylor, “Developing Personal Awareness and Examining Values: Inter-Connected Dimensions of Supervision in Clinical Legal Education”
This article examines instructional methodologies in clinical legal education and supervision through two central aims – developing personal awareness and examining values. Supervisors should focus on developing personal awareness, which increases awareness of the subtle but often powerful aspects of attitude, intention, motive, or discomfort with others. Failing to focus on personal awareness may make…