Teaching law : the legal clinic, the university and social justice

In this chapter we discuss connections between social justice, teaching law and the legal clinic and put forward three propositions: 1) that universities should be engaged in advancing social justice; 2) that there are barriers to universities engaging in teaching and research which advances social justice; 3) that in teaching law, legal clinics are an effective method of bringing social justice into the heart of the curriculum. There is ongoing debate in law schools as to whether the focus of teaching law in clinical mode should be to produce students with highly developed technical skills who can do well in the legal profession/industry or whether the resources allocated to teaching should be directed to social justice outcomes. It is of course possible to do both, but the focus of the curriculum in the course, especially in clinical teaching, will frequently tend to one or the other.