Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2022
Journal
Washington University Journal of Law & Policy
Volume
68
First Page
141
Last Page
182
Abstract
The inspiration for this Article was the 2021 Conference of the Global Alliance for Justice Education (GAJE), a biannual gathering since 1999 of law educators and others interested in justice education from around the world. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the conference was conducted virtually. During the three-day conference, over 450 participants from 45 countries gathered to participate in the sharing of workshops and presentations, ranging from discussions of papers to five-minute "lightning talks." In addition, there were virtual spaces for social meetings with new and old friends. The authors attended as many of the sessions as possible in real-time and reviewed many more recorded videos of the sessions they could not. The diversity, depth, and richness of these presentations and exchanges was extraordinary. While a great many of these sessions deserve to qualify for particular mention, we selected five presentations we felt were illustrative of many of the themes of GAJE 2021, consistent with the concepts of transformational justice and "rebellious lawyering" and the qualities of legal education promoting them. We asked the presenters to prepare short papers summarizing their presentations.
The contributions to this Article illuminate many of the current themes and issues in our understanding of the teaching and the practice of transformational justice and rebellious lawyering as observed and lived by a number of law school faculty and their students around the world. For us, two professors of law programs that represent clients (in the case of Professor Klein's Families and the Law clinic) or educate the public about the law (in the case of Professor Roe's Street Law program), we not only want to achieve good results but also want to engage our constituents in the process of achieving justice as a form of civic engagement. Rebellious lawyering and law teaching not only provide a service to underserved communities, but also consciously engage our constituents in building the common good. As we discuss progressive clinical teaching, we recognize that many Clinical Legal Education programs have moved toward a more orthodox, less radical approach as we have become more mainstream (i.e., focusing on advocacy skills, resume building, and enabling students to have lucrative careers rather than ones focused on social change and poverty/community lawyering). These contributions pose questions, directly or indirectly, as to how and to what degree clinical teachers and students are willing to embrace systemic-even radical-change and the methodology to achieve it as part of their mission. To what extent are we content being an engaging and effective part of conventional legal education, or are we trying to achieve more?
Recommended Citation
Olinda Moyd, Catherine F. Klein, Richard Roe, Mizanur Rahman, Dipika Jain, Abhayraj Naik, Natalia M. Castilho, Taysa Schiocchet, Sunday K. Agwu, Bianca Sukrow & Christoph Konig,
Teaching about Justice by Teaching with Justice: Global Perspectives on Clinical Legal Education and Rebellious Lawyering,
68
Washington University Journal of Law & Policy
141
(2022).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/facsch_lawrev/2057