Here are Philip Wells and Doug Cuthbertson talking about one of the big challenges of running a one semester law clinic.
We switched from mostly two semester clinics to mostly one semester clinics some years ago, a choice we made so we could offer a clinical experience to more students at the law school.
I think it was, and is, the right choice. It keeps students on the steep part of the learning curve and permits them to get a broader legal education, but as Doug and Phil note, most of our cases are not resolved in one semester. That means that clients usually work with at least two teams of students.
We are always concerned about the transition from one team to another. We need to be sure that the first team fully documents the case and there is always the need for the second team to establish the relationship anew. Of course the faculty are a constant, so we really are not starting from scratch and experience tells me that clients understand the transition and very rarely have a problem with it, but it is an issue for us.
-- Ian Weinstein
Fordham, Law School, Clinical Legal Education, Law Clinic, Pro Bono Work, Legal Education, Legal Pedagogy, Teaching Law, Student Lawyers, Law Student
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