Category: Professional Identity
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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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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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Neil Hamilton & Lisa Montpetit Brabbit, “Fostering Professionalism through Mentoring”
This article mentor relationships as fostering professionalism. Notably, literature often defines the two as distinct principles. The authors note that “a mentor in the legal profession is a person who helps a lawyer (or law student) develop professionally both in internalizing the principles of professionalism and in achieving the protege’s personal professional goals” (106). The…