The Andragogical Basis of Clinical Legal Education

Clinical legal education offers law students the opportunity to work together with faculty on cases that present the types of problems which law students want to learn how to solve. Andragogical theory holds that adult learners such as law students should be taught through mutual inquiry between teacher and student, through the use of actual experience, and with the recognition that students are ready and oriented to learn about that which they perceive to be relevant to their current social roles and professional goals. The clinical method of law teaching adds an important andragogical component to professional legal education; at the same time, andragogy provides both a theoretical basis for clinical legal education and some suggestions about a model for implementing the clinical method. Clinical legal education works in large part because it is andragogically sound.

Legal education in general can benefit from andragogical theory, and the recognition of the andragogical basis of clinical legal education perhaps can hasten the integration of the clinical method into the mainstream of legal education.