Abstract
In this essay, I first review a valuable book on criminal defense ethics, Ethical Problems Facing the Criminal Defense Lawyer: Practical Answers to Tough Questions, and then examine how this book can be used to enhance the teaching of ethics in a criminal defense clinic. Ethical Problems is largely the work of clinicians and addresses ethical dilemmas commonly faced by public defenders and court-appointed counsel, dilemmas that students in a criminal defense clinic are likely to encounter. It is also clinical scholarship in another sense, namely that, as Peter Hoffman has urged, it is based in experience, accessible, and understandable to its audience. Ethical Problems is all of that. As a result, its arguments and ideas deserve close attention from other clinicians, and in Part Two I will review them in some detail, offering my own clinical responses to the points the authors make. In addition, however, because this book is scholarship that "[l]awyers and law students ... [can] read, understand, and most importantly, apply," we can use Ethical Problems in our practice and teaching to improve the representation of clients and our students' learning. In Part Three of this Essay I will turn to the ways this book can be put to valuable pedagogical use in our clinics.
Publication Title
Clinical Law Review
Volume
2
Issue
1
First Page
251
Recommended Citation
Marla L. Mitchell,
Beyond a Book Review: Using Clinical Scholarship in Our Teaching,
2
Clinical L. Rev
251
(1995).
Available at:
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/clr/vol2/iss1/10