Teaching International Law: Lessons from Clinical Education: Remarks
The theme of the Annual Meeting-international law in a time of change-is tailor-made for discussing the importance of clinical legal education. Clinical education perceives the law as an intrinsically evolving process, i.e., dynamic, engaged, and capable of change. Clinical educators are often practitioners first, on the whole following Jerome Frank's theory of law as an instrument for social justice. Being engaged helps one to appreciate that the law is not neutral, and neither are those who practice it. The legal profession has an ethical obligation to responsible lawyering, guided by a certain relevance to contemporary society, and-perhaps even more important-guided by a consciousness of the power we wield as lawyers, and the impact our acts and words can have, both positive and negative. Clinical legal education embraces engaged learning as a highly effective means to maximize the process by which students integrate these values. Regardless of the area of the law--or the world-clinical legal education stands for the idea that people, especially adults, learn best when they are engaged in practice.