Deborah Burand et al, “Clinical Collaborations: Going Global to Advance Social Entrepreneurship”

This article chronicles a transactional clinic collaboration between three clinics in the US seeking to advance social entrepreneurship globally. The article discusses why collaboration was used, the structure of the program, what the collaboration offers clients and participating law students, how the collaboration has expanded the skills and knowledge of the three clinical directors, and what others might learn from the experience when contemplating cross-university, clinical collaborations.

In this program, one client is shared by all three clinics. They share work based on the client’s needs. The collaboration has allowed clinicians to learn from each other and support each other in their legal work by sharing legal tools, practice methods, and other resources. One key aspect of the design of the collaboration is the clinic directors’ coordination and group meeting to discuss the collaboration, new ideas, ongoing legal projects, and potential clients. These regular check-in meetings encourage collaboration by reducing administrative overlap and maintaining transparency and accountability in the collective work.

Collaboration among the clinics is valuable for clinical directors. The collaboration is “teaching us to ‘walk our talk’ and to reflect on what we ask our students to learn – that collaboration is ‘a process in which respectful interaction brings the talents of all parties to bear on a problem”. Collaboration recognizes differences as strengths, increases motivation, and reduces anxiety. The collaboration amongst the clinics has fostered an environment of learning from different clinic design choices, different lawyering experiences, and clinical teaching methods.

Notably, students in each of the three clinics do not collaborate with each other. Students in each respective clinic collaborate with their peers and their clinical supervisors and in supervision meetings by way of input collaboration (one team member comments on another team member’s work), parallel collaboration (team members divide tasks) and true collaboration (all team members brainstorm at all phases of the collaboration – drafting, brainstorming, and final implementation).

Deborah Burand et al, “Clinical Collaborations: Going Global to Advance Social Entrepreneurship” (2014) 20:1 Int’l J Clinical Leg Educ 499.