From zero to 60: Building belief, capacity and community in Street Law instructors in one weekend

Rob Marrs,Freda Grealy,John Lunney,Richard Roe,Melinda Cooperman,Seán Arthurs,Jessica Gallagher

doi:10.19164/ijcle.v24i2.599

Abstract

Street Law, where law students or lawyers teach about the law in local school, correctional, and community settings, is the fastest growing and most popular type of experiential legal education in the world—and with good reason. The Street Law methodology helps make the law more relevant, more accessible, and more understandable to both participants in the program and lawyers and law students delivering the programming. Despite Street Law’s prevalence and popularity, there is scant guidance for how to best introduce and implement a program, little research support explaining why Street Law works, and even less empirical justification proving that the program works. This paper makes three significant and unique contributions to the emerging field of Street Law scholarship and research. First, we provide an in-depth explanation of the principles and learner-centered practices that make Street Law such a powerful tool for legal education. Second, we ground these principles and practices in a robust body of research, the first such effort in the field. Third, we offer an annotated step-by-step outline of a unique weekend orientation program developed and field-tested by the seminal Georgetown Street Law program and delivered in partnership with the Law Societies of Ireland and Scotland. It is our hope that this paper will offer practitioners both a series of best practices to draw upon and a reason to do so. A second paper, that will shortly follow this one, will share and discuss quantitative and qualitative data evidencing the powerful outcomes that this weekend orientation can effect in participants.

Highlights

Street Law, where law students or lawyers teach about the law in local school, correctional and community settings, is the fastest growing and most popular type of legal clinic in the world
This paper and the Orientation weekends that continue to inspire and train Irish and Scottish students and lawyers would not be possible without the valuable contributions of numerous dedicated individuals, generations of Street Law students and Fellows, and the committed staff and leadership at the Law Society of Ireland and the Law Society of Scotland
3 Street Law began as a legal clinic at Georgetown in 1972, changes in the American Bar Association’s definition of “legal clinic” led to its transformation into an experiential “practicum” at Georgetown starting in Fall 2016

Summary

Introduction

Street Law, where law students or lawyers teach about the law in local school, correctional and community settings, is the fastest growing and most popular type of legal clinic in the world. The reasons behind this growth are myriad. The Street Law Orientation program, first designed and implemented at Georgetown and developed into an international module, was designed to meet a number of goals and challenges: 1) meeting the learning needs, abilities, and interests of a diverse and wide range of learners, from high to low levels of literacy and socialization to school and diverse life experiences; 2) creating a learning and teaching trajectory where students and trainees experience and build upon success; 3) developing both knowledge and skills, cognitive and expressive skills; 4) developing respectful, democratic discourse essential for participatory learning, i.e., agreeing to disagree, and learning about self-government and self-regulation; and. 2) be conducted consistently with learner-centered principles,24 3) be immediately useful to the trainees25 4) encourage trainee autonomy, creativity, empathy, imagination and reflection; 5) promote principles of justice, and 6) demonstrate Street Law’s value for the trainees’ professional development.

Literature Review

VIII. Conclusion