Town and Gown or Law Schools and the Community

Recently I had the honor of co-editing a book with my friend Professor Cynthia Baker of Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law entitled “Town and Gown: Legal Strategies for Effective Collaboration” (ABA 2013). Our colleague Judith Welch Wegner of the University of North Carolina Law School contributed a chapter on the continuum of relationships between institutions and their host municipalities and communities where among other things, she describes partnerships that can both advance the educational mission of colleges and universities as well as the welfare of the communities in which they are situated. Professor Wegner explains how these tend to be more decentralized collaborations that may include faculty research, student internships including instruction and engagement in the work of the local government, and other service initiatives. 

Albany Law School’s Professor Mary Lynch and her co-author Jennifer Jack make the point in their chapter of the value that law school clinics provide as they connect with and affect their host communities. Specifically, they identify four ways in which law school clinics may be beneficial to their connected municipality: 1) through educational outreach and awareness, technical assistance, and referral information about governmental and other benefits that members of the community may be entitled to – which, they explain, may result in the law school serving as a referring entity or effective triage for community problems; 2) by solving unmet legal needs in the community through the provision of free legal services (and noting that this is especially critical in challenging economic climates where there is a shrinkage in federal and state funding for legal services); 3) through externships where students can provide needed support for the localpublic legal system including courts, government  agencies and legal service providers; and 4) through clinical education many schools produce community-centered lawyers who often pursue careers in public interest, government, legal services and pro bono work. 

The chapter on clinics was written before Superstorm Sandy ravaged the New York metropolitan area and Long Island, along with the Jersey Shore just under a year ago, yet the authors give as an example how law school clinics respond to disasters within communities such as was the case following Katrina in New Orleans and Mississippi and the disaster in Haiti. The Student Hurricane Relief Network, later renamed Student Disaster Relief Network was born out of the commitment of law students from across the country to make trips, at their own expense, to ravaged areas in the Gulf Coast.  Following Sandy, Touro Law Center set up TLC-HEART or the Hurricane Emergency Assistance Referral Team, which quickly grew into a clinic under the leadership of Professor Ben Rajotte. With over 1,400 intakes from the community in a relatively short period of time and ongoing daily demand for its services, the capacity of the law school to serve the community has been enhanced by the commitment of students from across the country and Europe from approximately 20 different law schools who have already visited to provide pro bono hours (or who plan to visit between now and spring break).  This number of quality volunteer hours given by law students and law faculty is an ongoing demonstration of law schools’ investment of educational resources can and often do serve the needs of both students and the members of the host community.  This is but one example illustrating how quickly law schools can mobilize to serve a valid educational mission and meet a valuable and immediate and critical community legal need.

When the media and others start the chatter about too many law schools, one of the many responses the academy might offer is the value proposition law schools, particularly through clinics and externships, bring to the community.      

Comments

[BoredJD]

"When the media and others start the chatter about too many law schools, one of the many responses the academy might offer is the value proposition law schools, particularly through clinics and externships, bring to the community."

Having low and middle income people take on 150K in debt in order to pay clinical and adjunct profs to give other low and middle income people free legal services, while research faculty and deans take a large "finders fee" to write articles and attend dinners, is hardly the value proposition you think it is.

There's a much more direct way to provide legal services to low and middle income people. The government can take 20% of the money it loans to students at schools like Touro and use it to fund positions at legal aid bureaus.

[anon]

Bored JD, OTOH, doctors learn at "teaching hospitals" and, of course, their mistakes are far more consequential.
I agree with the main point of the post. At least a clinic might take steps to address the fact that the "oversupply" of attorneys is only an illusion, as the vast majority of the public goes entirely underserved (but for the "legal zoom" type "services").
If law schools would only focus more on their core mission - to train attorneys - most of the "hot" issues under debate would resolve. Clinics are no panacea, but at least these clinics might represent a small swing back from the horribly misguided direction of the past twenty or so years.
The law academy might consider steering away from recruiting Ph.D.’s who specialize in "intersections" and steering toward those who understand and appreciate the practice of law in the United States.
Leave the focus on “intersections” for policy institutes and other graduate schools, and leave aside the gobbledygook. Find faculty who have concrete insights, based on knowledge, experience and scholarly pursuits, about improving the role that attorneys play in modern society and the perceived role of law schools in America will begin to turn.
The hypothetical visitor from Mars might say: “After moving as far away as you possibly could in recruiting and focus from the practice of law (relegating a few marginal efforts to stay relevant to a few small “clinics” staffed by persons with diminished status) , how can you pretend to be surprised that fewer of the best and brightest wish to attend law school and fewer employers wish to hire your graduates: while the vast majority of Americans remain underserved by attorneys?”
The consequence of the trend in recent years to move away from the core mission of law schools and toward a false ideal of recruiting Ph.D.s in other disciplines who have little to offer those aspiring to practice law is sort of obvious.