The Access to Justice Clinical Course Project launched in January at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. During that AALS event in New Orleans, CALI® officially unveiled a panel of six participating law school clinics whose faculty members would be developing a new clinical course or modifying an existing course to use A2J Author® to teach modern legal skills. The participants were chosen for their unique course models, in hopes that a set of disparate models would inspire faculty at other law schools to adapt one or more of these models into their own course(s).
Representatives from all six participating law school clinics will be on hand during Saturday’s symposium, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law to discuss their course model. The first hour will focus on the three clinics below, which operate as a hybrid clinic and classroom models. For more information.
Tanina Rostain and Roger Skalbeck have been teaching a course called Technology, Innovation and Law Practice at Georgetown for the last two years. This past Spring they expanded the course from a 2-credit seminar to a 3-credit practicum. As part of this course, students are matched up with a legal aid organization that needs assistance and they work with representatives from that organization to develop a platform, application, or automated system that increases access to justice. Throughout the semester, students also receive training on public speaking before delivering their final project as a venture-capital pitch as part of their annual Iron Tech lawyer competition.
Becoming a Professional at UNC Chapel Hill is a course taught by Judith Wegner that challenges students to develop their professional identities. The course is designed with two sections (one based at the University of Cincinnati and one at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), co-taught with Dean Louis Bilionis at Cincinnati, and practitioner-adjuncts at each site. Students develop their own project throughout the semester that addresses an area of law in which they are interested. All students will not be required to develop projects that use A2J Guided Interviews; however Wegner plans to identify a handful of projects ahead of time that would likely interest her public service-minded students.
The A2J Clinic at Concordia Law with Jodi Nafzger & Sunrise Ayres will be the law schools first clinical offering. Nafzger, director of experiential learning and career services, will teach the course alongside Ayres, a staff attorney for Idaho Legal Aid Services. The course is designed so that students will learn the principles of automated document assembly, while also developing an understanding of the substantive law involved with a specific area of law relevant to serving legal aid clients. The students in the clinic will work closely with ILAS to develop new A2J Guided Interviews to serve the self-represented litigants throughout Idaho.
Throughout the next two weeks, as the live symposium approaches, the CALI Spotlight Blog will preview another symposium presentation each day:
- June 5, 2013: Marc Lauritsen, “Liberty, Justice, and Legal Automata”
- June 6, 2013: William E. Hornsby, Jr., “Gaming the System: Approaching 100% Access to Legal Services Through Online Games”
- June 7, 2013: Conrad Johnson and Brian Donnelly, “If Only We Knew What We Know”
- June 8, 2013: Richard S. Granat and Stephanie Kimbro, “The Teaching of Law Practice Management and Technology in Law Schools: A New Paradigm”
- June 10, 2013: Oliver R. Goodenough, “Developing an e-Curriculum: Reflections on the Future of Legal Education and on the Importance of Digital Expertise”
- June 11, 2013: Tanina Rostain, Roger Skalbeck and Kevin Mulcahy, “Thinking Like a Lawyer, Designing Like an Architect: PReparing Students for the 21st Century Practice”
- June 12, 2013: Ronald W. Staudt and Andrew P. Medeiros, “Access to Justice and Technology Clinics: A 4% Solution”
- June 13, 2013: Hybrid Courses of the A2J Clinic Project
- Tanina Rostain & Roger Skalbeck, Technology, Innovation and Law Practice: An Experiential Seminar at Georgetown University Law Center
- Judith Wegner, Becoming a Professional at UNC School of Law
- Sunrise Ayers, A2J Clinic at Concordia University School of law
- June 14, 2013: Traditional Clinical Courses of the A2J Clinic Project
- Conrad Johnson, Mary Zulack & Brian Donnelly, Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic at Columbia Law School
- Joe Rosenberg, Main Street Legal Services, Elder Law Clinic at CUNY School of Law
- JoNel Newman & Melissa Swain, Medical Legal Clinic at University of Miami School of Law
- June 15, 2013: Kevin D. Ashley, “Teaching Law and Digital Age Legal Practice with an AI and Law Seminar;” and Vern R. Walker et al, “Law Schools as Knowledge Centers in the Digital Age”
Professor Ashley and Professor Walker are unable to attend the in-person symposium on June 15, 2013, but their valuable contributions will be published with the printed edition of the Chicago-Kent Law Review that accompanies the live symposium.