Abstract
The clinical legal education environment is one that is ripe with professional and ethical situations. Students involved in this educational experience inevitably are exposed to ethical dilemmas and choices. In this paper we examine the role played by clinical legal education programs in the development of ethical awareness among those law students. Within the context of the well documented concerns in the wider legal profession as to the standard of ethics teaching and ethical practice we assert that the clinical environment provides a rich opportunity for a deep learning experience about the nature and extent of a legal practitioner’s professional and ethical responsibilities.
Highlights
The clinical legal education environment is one that is ripe with professional and ethical situations
In Australia where the links between clinical programs and the access to justice movement remain strong, there is a risk of complacency in the clinical fraternity about the teaching of ethical legal practice
If clinical legal education is to be more than practical legal training, clinical teachers and program designers should be wary of the easy option of perpetuating an uncritical acceptance of the law of lawyering
Summary
The clinical legal education environment is one that is ripe with professional and ethical situations. The ALRC in Managing Justice considered approvingly the approach of the 1992 MacCrate Report into legal education in the USA25 and in many respects the Australian concerns for ethics education mirror those expressed in other jurisdictions.[26] As well as these formal government initiated inquiries, academic writing and inquiry has blossomed in Australia and elsewhere over the past ten years leading to an increasing literature exploring the nature of ethics in law and ethical legal practice as well as the teaching of ethics in the law school curriculum.[27] Professional bodies in Australia have come to the realisation that there must be a re-envisioning of the meaning of ethical legal practice.[28] there is still considerable debate about what constitutes ethical legal practice.
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