Two Contradictory Criticisms of Clinical Education: Dilemmas and Directions in Lawyering Education

This article reviews what legal education is attempting to accomplish in teaching lawyering skills and where, from my perspective as a clinician, I think it has fallen short. I then offer some suggestions for what both clinicians and non-clinicians might do to further our efforts directed at truly educating lawyers. The two critiques I will offer of clinical education derive from two of clinical education's principal goals - teaching students how to "behave"as well as "think" like a lawyer (a behavorist goal), and teaching our students to think more broadly about the purpose of their roles as lawyers in the larger society (a social critic's goal). All clinicians do a little of both and some non-clinicians claim to pay some attention to these issues, but there are ways we have fallen short of making the most of these pedagogical goals.