Category: Format – Article
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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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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…
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Peter Toll Hoffman, “The Stages of the Clinical Supervisory Relationship”
This paper examines the role of the supervisor in legal clinic contexts. Throughout the student-supervisor relationship, teaching occurs in many ways: dialectic teaching, didactic teaching, evaluation, demonstration, or a combination of some or all of these teaching methods. The relationship between student and supervisor is constantly changing. There are several stages students pass through while…
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Kathleen A Sullivan, “Self-Disclosure, Separation, and Students: Intimacy in the Clinical Relationship”
This article describes the author’s discomfort in sharing personal details about her life with clinic students. The author describes how relationships between supervisors and clinical students can be intimate and the extent to which intimacy is generally a feature of clinical teaching relationships. This relationship is one of the greatest challenges in clinical legal education.…
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Susannah Sage-Jacobson & Tania Leiman, “Identifying Teaching and Learning Opportunities within Professional Relationships between Clinic Supervisors”
This paper examines the Flinders Legal Advice Clinic through an appreciative inquiry research approach, allowing for reflection on past experiences, insights into positive events, identification of peak performance and the exploration of possibilities for future successful practice. “Appreciative inquiry” is a strengths-based approach that affirms individuals and brings greater focus on positives and strengths to…