Carol Boothby, “Supervising the Supervisors: What are the Challenges Inherent in Teaching in a Clinic Environment and how can Colleagues be Supported on the Transition from Practitioner to Practice-Informed Teacher and Researcher”

This PhD thesis centres the question of how clinicians understand their roles as lawyers/supervisors/academics, particularly in the transition from one role to another. It is wide-ranging and draws on a variety of research methods. The author tries to capture the unique role of the clinic supervisor, which bridges several roles and identities. 

“In many respects, the demands of clinic run counter to the demands of the university to be research active – unless the teaching and learning can be successfully harnessed to fulfill the University research demands” (122)

Supervisors in clinics offering full casework models, where the clinic takes on clients under retainer lead to additional burdens and risks associated with taking on people’s problems. The full casework model requires that students work in complex environments in their dealing with real casework.

“Existing work on the experiences of new clinical supervisors about the importance of ‘letting go’ and allowing students the space to make their own decisions suggests that for some practitioners, there is a practical difficulty in finding the balance necessary for the student to learn from their experience without putting the client at risk. It is an interpersonal relationship, being to a great extent, what Kreber calls ‘communicative learning’ or ‘praxis’ and that ‘the cognitive power needed for praxis is practical judgment’. Clinic requires student engagement far beyond that demanded in the methods of simulated learning adopted in other arenas. Whilst the use of methods such as problem-based learning and the standardised client are useful in orienting students to the complexity of real-life legal problems, and interaction with clients, a live client clinic is a quantum leap for many students, because clinical experiences are never certain. The uncertainty is not the sole preserve of the student. The supervisor… may be able to predict… what might happen as a case progresses, but equally… the…turns that a case may take are unpredictable…. [I]n effective adaptive teaching, it serves as an important reminder that clinical supervisors work in an environment where they too do not always know what to do next and are as a consequence in an ideal position to model learning and reflection in action to students.” (68)

Carol Boothby, Supervising the Supervisors: What are the Challenges Inherent in Teaching in a Clinic Environment and how can Colleagues be Supported on the Transition from Practitioner to Practice-Informed Teacher and Researcher (2020) University of Northumbria at Newcastle (UK).