Situated Learning in Clinic Legal Education

• In Event: Participation, Communication, and Attitudes Across Professions – Paper Session

Abstract

Law school clinic programs have been used for decades to provide law students the opportunity to gain practical skills while representing low-income community members in need of legal services. Though this pedagogical approach is associated in the literature with skill development, career decision making, and a number of other educational outcomes (Joy 2012; Maresh, 1997; Pipkin, 1976), very few studies examine student learning though clinic participation empirically. This study applies a situated learning framework to the examination of first-year law students’ participation in clinics in order to understand how taking part in clinic work shapes students’ professional practice, professional identities, and participation in the profession while in law school and after graduation.

Authors

• Katie Shoemaker, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Amy P Fulton, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor