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Abstract

Professor Aiken, in her article Striving to Teach "Justice, Fairness, and Morality," recognizes the importance of integrating the "analysis of difference into traditional courses to ensure that students begin the life-long process of examining their exercise of privilege and develop an appreciation of the professional value of striving for justice, fairness, and morality." Her article sets out a pedagogical approach to legal education with the goal of constructing a learning experience that maximizes reflection and unmasks privilege. Aiken's article raises important issues for all of us concerned with legal education and the competent representation of clients. Focusing first on the clinical setting, Aiken analyzes her students' experiences and how they affect client representation. She relies on the diverse realities that contribute to the social construction of knowledge to show how students' experiences affect their values and how these experiences and values in turn affect the students' assessment of the law. She explores the constraints that students' assumptions and attitudes impose upon their ability to assess the law and the ways in which they view the facts of a case and the merits of a client's claims. Aiken then describes the opportunities for clinical students to begin to recognize that their assumptions about the legal system may not in fact apply to everyone. She explains how "clinical legal education increases the possibility for disorienting moments." Aiken would have students adopt a framework of analysis that questions beliefs and assumptions. Additionally, Aiken would have the students be mindful that they always are operating from a position of limited knowledge.

Publication Title

Clinical Law Review

Volume

4

Issue

1

First Page

129

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