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Abstract

This Article attempts to bridge some of the gaps between theory about collaborative lawyering and the reality of everyday Legal Services practice by exploring the potential of community education to address the problems of poor clients. By using a case study of a community education program in Chicago, this Article demonstrates how this underutilized lawyering technique can be employed as a component of Legal Services practice. It is an especially opportune time to examine community education as a strategy because it is one of the few activities that Legal Services lawyers are still able to conduct, aside from individual client representation. As a result, clinical programs and practitioners need to develop methods of implementing community education programs and train students who will be entering Legal Services in educational techniques. This Article is divided into two Parts. Part I examines the development of Legal Services, which has historically focused on individual and impact litigation as primary strategies for fighting poverty, with community education playing a very small role. This reality of Legal Services practice is contrasted with emerging theoretical models of poverty law, which feature community education as an important function for lawyers. Part II of this Article first provides a descriptive analysis of a community education program initiated at a Legal Services program in Chicago. The Chicago program focused on educating community members about workplace rights and was especially geared toward addressing the concerns of immigrant women. The program comprised a variety of elements, including workshops, intensive courses, an educational video, and publicity of workplace laws in the media. Next, Part II evaluates the Chicago program by providing examples of how the program affected its participants. The results of the program indicate that community education reaches under-served populations, provides opportunities for clients to have their voices heard, responds to concerns that cannot be adequately addressed by the legal system, encourages individuals to solve their own problems, and develops leadership skills in community members. Because concrete examples from poverty practice are rarely seen in the academic literature, and examples of community education programs are especially rare, this practice-based analysis should be useful as a pedagogical tool for practitioners and clinical programs that plan to incorporate community education into their practice. In addition, this analysis should provide a deeper understanding of how the theory of critical lawyering may translate into everyday Legal Services practice.

Publication Title

Clinical Law Review

Volume

4

Issue

2

First Page

433

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