Interdisciplinary Clinics - The Lawyer's View Is Not The Only Perspective

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Two earlier posts discussed the importance of collaboration and teamwork between and among lawyers. But lawyers also need to work with other professionals, although we are not always so good at it. I recall one of my law school professors, Steve Gillers, a leading voice on lawyer's ethics and professional responsibility, noting that lawyers divided the world into lawyers and non-lawyers and then asking whether we should also divide the world into dentists and non-dentists. We all laughed, but I took him to be warning us against insularity and the point stuck with me.

Clinical legal education fights lawyerly insularity in many ways, I hope. Its historic commitment to training us to try to see things from the client's point of view, the much discussed client centered approach, was a big advance in the 1980s and is still a central insight, for which we all owe thanks to our UCLA colleagues David Binder, Paul Bergman and Susan Price.

More recently, the burgeoning movement toward interdisciplinary work has struck another blow against insularity. Interdisciplinary work in clinical education takes multiple forms. At Fordham we have been fortunate to have Professor Lyn Slater, a member of the faculty of our School  of Social Servicesat the law clinic and engaged in team teaching in our interdisciplinary Family Advocacy Clinic. Lyn brings so much to our work in the legal clinic.

One of the key things Lyn has taught me is that when lawyers work with other professionals, we should understand that other professions have distinct modes of analysis which should be celebrated, not subsumed. Too often lawyers try to tell other professionals how they fit into the legal work, rather than thinking about how the other professionals can help the lawyers re-conceptualize the legal work or how the other professionals can offer services and add value in ways that are beyond what lawyers can offer.

As evidence for the success of my colleagues engaged in interdisciplinary work, I offer this insightful comment by Amanda Raboy, a student in the interdisciplinary clinic who is blessed to start out with a broad, inclusive view of the value of working with other professionals, rather than the more common lawyer-centric view of the professional world.

-- Ian Weinstein

Fordham, Law School, Clinical Legal Education, Legal Ethics, Professional Responsibility, Family Advocacy, Paul Bergman, School of Social Services, Interdisciplinary Education