Repair and Reimagine: Clinical Education and the Future We Are Shaping  

In 2026, the clinical community convened to Hold the Line: to defend democratic norms, protect hard-won rights, and resist unprecedented intrusions into academic institutions and scholarly inquiry. That work continues. But as the field absorbs the impact of intense polarization, institutional retrenchment, and ongoing threats to academic freedom, a new question is taking shape: What are we building? Repairing what has been damaged is essential, but it is not enough. Moments like these create opportunities to question longstanding assumptions, imagine alternative possibilities, and build institutions, relationships, and forms of lawyering that are more responsive, inclusive, and resilient. As clinical educators preparing the next generation of lawyers, we are uniquely positioned to not just respond to this moment, but to help shape what comes next.  

This conference builds on the resilience of clinical legal education to look ahead to what it can become. Rather than revisiting the case for why clinical education matters (a case this community has long since made), the conference asks what comes next. Attendees will explore ways to repair institutions, relationships, and systems of trust that have been strained or broken, while also imagining new models of clinical practice, pedagogy, and partnership suited to the road ahead. The conference invites participants to consider how periods of disruption create openings for creativity, reconstruction, and transformative change.  

Conference programming will highlight four subthemes: 

  • Repairing Institutions. How are clinical programs forging new partnerships with community organizations, developing new models of public engagement, and reimagining their institutional role? How do clinical educators move from stabilizing damaged systems to designing more durable and accountable ones? How do experiential programs cultivate leaders who can build, not just preserve, institutional integrity? 
  • Renewing Pedagogy. How does clinical pedagogy prepare students not only to resist injustice, but to recognize moments of institutional transformation as opportunities for innovation and renewal? What does it mean to teach students to imagine, design, and build legal structures, community partnerships, and systems of accountability that better serve democratic values and human needs? 
  • Reimagining Critical Inquiry. The tools, methods, and terrain for critical inquiry are shifting rapidly. Rather than defending established frameworks, how is clinical education developing new ones and examining critical questions about who holds power, how institutions distribute it, and what accountability looks like in an era of rapid technological and political change? How are clinicians harnessing artificial intelligence as a tool for justice while navigating its risks? What new approaches to scholarship and advocacy are emerging in response to surveillance, political pressure, and constraints on open discourse?  
  • Learning Across Time, Place, and Disciplines. The work of repairing democratic institutions and imagining more just systems is not unique to any one era, place, or discipline. What can clinicians learn from earlier periods of retrenchment and renewal in the United States? How are clinicians actively drawing from international comparative models of institutional repair? What are clinicians taking from fields beyond law to strengthen their own clinical pedagogy and practice? 

Planning Committee

Deleso A. Alford, Southern University Law School
Paul M. Holland, Seattle University Law School
Renee Hutchins Laurent, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
Gowri J. Krishna, Fordham University School of Law
Beth Locker, Vermont Law and Graduate School
Bethany Schols, Penn State Dickinson Law, chair
Robin Walker Sterling, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
Jessica L. West, Mitchell Hamline School of Law