Reexamining the Role of Lawyers and the Responsibilities of Clinical Teachers in Society
The dates of the 2025 Conference on Clinical Legal Education coincide with the 10 year anniversary of the police killing of Freddie Gray and the uprising in the streets of Baltimore that followed. In the intervening 10 years, the Baltimore uprising, the Black Lives Matter movement, and other movements and organizations fiercely, beautifully, and lovingly led the way toward necessary structural changes, including in the legal academy with the implementation of ABA Standard 303. Those same 10 years, however, saw threats to democracy and the rule of law worldwide, a climate increasingly unstable, uncertainty spurred by the emergence of generative AI across industries and education, lasting changes and barriers to the justice system and the profession as the result of COVID-19, the ascendence of a politicized and ethically compromised Supreme Court, and so many more. The clinical legal education community has historically been the first to advocate for changes to legal education, and this conference has served as the incubator for some of those changes. Now, with legal education, our profession, and our society facing pressures from so many external factors, it is more important than ever to come together and share our insights and ideas.
Thus, in service of our collective learning, clinical educators are invited to reflect on the role of lawyers and legal educators in addressing critical issues and fundamental changes in society and the profession. We have an obligation to teach not just that lawyers have a duty to protect and guard democracy, the rule of law, and the administration of justice, but to equip students to exercise that duty in challenging circumstances. The conference invites conversation about priorities for clinical legal education and examples of strategies employed to address these issues.
Proposals addressing other topics of interest to clinicians are welcome, including those focused on clinical pedagogy, the NextGen Bar Exam, the learning methods and lived experiences of our current students, sharing teaching ideas and strategies for trauma-informed teaching, trauma-informed lawyering, and approaches to wellness and self-care for our students and ourselves.