Getting into the Field

A group of students enrolled in a law school clinic wanders through a large farmers' market. They stop to chat with the proprietors of a farm that has sold vegetables at the market for many years. They visit with a cheesemaker and an apple grower. A second group learns about the economic costs of organic production from a farmer and talks with an olive oil producer.

Both sets of students seem unusually attentive to their surroundings. That may be because the first group helped the sponsor of the market rework the market's rules and regulations, and the second developed a site agreement for use by the sponsor in securing new locations. They had spent a lot of time thinking about market operations and how best to reflect them in contract documents.