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Abstract

"I know when he gets out... he will kill me," my client stated, as matter-of-factly as if she had just told me the sky was blue. From across the conference room table I could feel her terror under my own skin. Panicked by her fatalism, I quickly tried to steer the conversation to something I thought I could actually fix-making it more difficult for him to find her by strategizing a plan for her to relocate. She reluctantly followed my new direction, but I could tell she was unsatisfied with my response. This woman suffered with much more complex problems than I, with just my twenty-four years of life experience and one and a half years of legal education, was equipped to handle. My inexperience, coupled with my insecurity, began to haunt me as I realized there was nothing I could do, ultimately, to save her. Naive? of course. Unhealthy? No doubt. Just plain wrong? Yes. Call it CCLS Lesson #1: attorneys do not save-they empower. On the outside, I knew this. On the inside, I had a hard time accepting it. Thus, I became the hardworking, obsessive, committed, very scared, and frequently ill apprentice of Professor Barry and the author of the note at the beginning of Professor Barry's article. When I began this Article, my intent was to provide clinical professors with some insight into what it feels like to be a student in a law school clinic, insight that I hope will help professor-readers understand some of their students' actions or reactions in the future. As this project progressed, I began to develop a second objective aimed at any student-readers, namely that they should be able to glean some comfort from this Article in knowing that they are not alone if they are feeling inadequate about their clinic performance. As I understand it, the primary goal behind most law school clinics is to teach students how to practice law by teaching them how to learn from their experiences. I think we can all agree this is no small endeavor. Professor Barry and I have had many conversations about how difficult it is for clinicians to gauge when they are pushing a student too hard. This article seeks to provide readers with the student's perspective on a supervisor/professor's attempt to walk the "fine line" between encouraging a student to develop answers and solutions on her own and pushing that student too hard.

Publication Title

Clinical Law Review

Volume

2

Issue

1

First Page

167

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