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Abstract

By far the most challenging value is the injunction to strive to promote justice, fairness, and morality. Arguably, the first value, the provision of competent representation, can be fostered by effective skills training. The third value, striving to improve the profession, can be fostered through active participation in the Bar. The fourth value, professional self-development, appears to be mainly concerned with effective Continuing Legal Education programs that enhance lawyers' ability to learn through experience. Yet methods of promoting the second value are not only less obvious than they are for the other three values, but also more difficult. The MacCrate Report, although eloquent in its articulation of this value, only spends three pages discussing it. In its section on justice, fairness and morality, the report suggests three areas in which attorneys can promote this value in their daily practice. They are: 1) when the lawyer is making decisions for a client; 2) when counseling clients about decisions the client must make; and 3) by treating others with dignity and respect. In addition, members of the profession can strive to promote justice by ensuring that adequate legal services are provided for those who cannot afford to pay and working toward the enhancement of the law's ability to do justice. The MacCrate Report itself acknowledges that its inventory of skills and values is a "work in progress" and invites members of the legal community to expand and refine it. This article responds to that invitation by suggesting ways in which we can teach future lawyers about how to promote justice in their daily practice. First, I discuss the ways in which legal education is presently failing in this endeavor. Next, I outline a learning theory that offers a model for teaching about justice through the systematic study of incidences of injustice. I then describe a clinical experience in which the students encountered injustice in the course of representing clients and analyze how and perhaps why that experience affected the students' sense of justice. Finally, I look at ways in which the learning theory and the insights gained from this clinical experience can be used in other clinical courses as well as in traditional law school courses. I offer examples of methods that may make the MacCrate aspiration operational.

Publication Title

Clinical Law Review

Volume

4

Issue

1

First Page

1

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