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Abstract

In 1992, when the University of California's Hastings College of Law decided to offer a live-client clinic for the first time, its newly hired director had to make several decisions about what form the program should take. The first question for the director was whether the clinic should be a single-issue specialty clinic or a general clinic that would represent clients across several areas of the law. The second question, and the one that will be the focus of this essay, was whether the program should restrict its caseload to "easy" routine cases or also accept non-routine, less controllable litigation. Before addressing the second of these questions, I want to take a moment to consider the first. The choice of specialty clinic versus general clinic is an important one because a clinic's structure cannot help but determine what values and skills it will teach. For specialists, the limited range of their work offers multiple benefits: Students get to handle routine cases in a way that lets them build on what they have done before, and students are better positioned to see the broader policy issues within the specialty, as well as to engage in law reform. Generalists, on the other hand, argue that students develop a more open-minded approach to law when every intake is a mystery trip and students cannot operate from preconceived ideas or patterned expectations. Generalists also point out that students and teachers prefer, and benefit from, variety.

Publication Title

Clinical Law Review

Volume

2

Issue

2

First Page

545

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