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Abstract

The very existence of the Clinical Law Review challenges us to consider what is meant by legal scholarship in general and clinical legal scholarship in particular. Like Six Characters in Search of an Author, clinician authors have plied their wares in a variety of venues in search of a journal broad enough in its vision to cast their rich and varied contributions to clinical legal scholarship. The Clinical Law Review has become that venue. In the foreword to the first issue of the Clinical Law Review, the editors briefly trace the developments of clinical legal education and clinical legal scholarship. The editors promise simultaneously to publish a variety of clinical scholarship and to present a forum for debating the questions of not only what should clinical scholarship be but also "what this journal should be about...." In keeping with that promise, the first issue of the Clinical Law Review presented several views of what should be the fundamental goals of clinical scholarship and some diverse examples of those views. The editors observed, "The question of what our scholarship is about is at once a question of what our overall enterprise is about... [and] what our fundamental goals [as clinical teachers] should be." Among the clinical goals advanced by contributors to the first issue are three broad goals often articulated by clinicians: skills training, the moral education of law students, and social change. While none of the authors argued that any one particular goal should be the exclusive goal of clinical education, their articles suggest that there are tensions among these potentially competing goals. These articles illustrate that while the Clinical Law Review may promise clinicians a room of our own big enough to accommodate what are at times presented as competing goals, no one can promise that the accommodations always will be comfortable. This article argues that skills training is not sound or good skills education unless it teaches law students not only how to be technically adept at lawyering skills, but also how to understand and develop the values necessary for a lawyer to represent clients in a professionally responsible way. In this view, good skills training encompasses far more than lawyer technique or technical skills. Law students must learn that competency as a lawyer requires not only a reasonable level of proficiency in lawyering skills and an advocate's commitment to clients but also an appreciation of a lawyer's obligations to clients and society as an officer of the court. Whether the acquisition of fundamental lawyering skills and professional values also provides a moral education or leads to social change largely depends on one's definitions and expectations.

Publication Title

Clinical Law Review

Volume

2

Issue

2

First Page

385

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